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THE DRAMA OF THE 
APOCALYPSE 



I iXka . 71.3. {LodtAC**.. £/wailJb. Ho* 



THE DRAMA OF THE 
APOCALYPSE 

IN RELATION TO THE LITERARY AND 
POLITICAL CIRCUMSTANCES 
OF ITS TIME 

BY 

FREDERIC PALMER 

AUTHOR OF " STUDIES IN THEOLOGIC DEFINITION " 




THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. 
1903 



All rights reserved 



- 1 s*^. 



THE l:BRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 

Two Copies Received 

MAY 11 1903 

Copyright Entry 
CLASS M a. XXc No. 

L .CQ-PY. 5 * | 

Copyright, 1903, 
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 



Set up and electrotyped May, 1903. 



j t I * 1 c * 1 

LC Control Number 




tmp96 031562 

Norton a ti ^ress 

J. S. Cushing & Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. 
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Preface . . . . r vii 

CHAPTER 

I. The Dramatic Character of the Apoca- 
lypse i 

II. Signs of the Times 22 

III. The Drama 35 

IV. The End of All Things .... 87 
V. The Person of Jesus . . . . .98 

VI. The Literary Value of the Apocalypse . 113 
VII. The Book of the Revelation . . .122 

Appendix 191 



V 



PREFACE 



The following Study of the Apocalypse is 
intended to be not so much a critical exami- 
nation as an appreciation. It does not aim 
to be a commentary, a museum of research, 
nor an embodiment of decisions upon the 
many scholastic questions involved. It en- 
deavors rather to invite, and to smooth the 
way before the ordinary reader. There is 
lying ready much piety which would gladly 
find fresh food, much literary appreciation 
which w r ould welcome a new masterpiece, 
much poetic sensibility waiting to test fire 
by itself. Too often when one of these has 
approached the Book of the Revelation it 
has been repelled by language it could not 
understand. But for all these classes the 
Book is peculiarly an inheritance. It needs 
but a little to put them in possession of their 
own. That little this Essay is ambitious to 
accomplish. 

One of the first principles of the Biblical 
Study of our day is that we cannot know 

vii 



viii 



Preface 



what the Bible means for us until we know 
something of what it meant for those to 
whom it was uttered. It is in accordance 
with this principle that in coming to the 
Apocalypse we seek first to find what it 
meant to the Christian of the latter half of 
the first century. Its value for us may not 
be the same as for him, but it will be on 
the same lines. The spiritual lessons will 
be similar, though the circumstances through 
w r hich they are taught may be different. It 
is this conviction of the necessity of pene- 
trating through its outer circumstances to a 
knowledge of the mind of the time, that has 
led to the present Study of the Apocalypse. 

F. P. 



Andover, Mass. 



"And the Apocalypse of St. John is the majestic image of a 
high and stately tragedy, shutting up and intermingling her solemn 
scenes and acts with a sevenfold chorus of hallelujahs and harping 
symphonies." 

— John Milton, " The Reason of Church Government." 

"The soul has said.. 'I do not know what all these emblems, in 
which angels and devils and beasts with heads and horns are intro- 
duced, may exactly signify, but I do see that all brute-power will 
be overcome by holy love; I do see that all vain cunning will be 
proved to be vain by holy wisdom; I do see that the Lord of the 
great heavens will, governing here as well as on high, and manag- 
ing His transactions according to great preparations made in the 
invisible scene, bear down with helpful powers upon the earth, and 
make the changes below correspond to the changes above. 5 " 
— Frederick D. Maurice, " Lectures on the Apocalypse." 



ix 



THE 



DRAMA OF THE APOCALYPSE 

CHAPTER I 

THE DRAMATIC CHARACTER OF THE 
APOCALYPSE 

THE Revelation of St. John is probably 
one of the least read and least valued 
of the books of the New Testament. The 
second and third chapters, the last, and parts 
of the twentieth and twenty-first stand, it is 
true, on a different plane in the mind of the 
ordinary reader, from the other parts of the 
Book. These speak a language as easily 
understood as that of the Gospels. The 
chapters which are supposed to be a descrip- 
tion of Heaven have furnished a precious 
basis for the devout imagination in all ages. 
But the greater part of the Book is to 
most readers of the Bible a confused mass, 

B I 



2 The Drama of the Apocalypse 

into which angels and dragons and beasts 
with heads and horns, vials and trumpets, 
are introduced in no order and with no per- 
ceptible plan. And the ordinary reader is 
in one respect right. He can find what is 
better adapted to his purpose much more 
readily elsewhere. The value of the Book 
does not lie where he is accustomed to look 
for value, in texts, short quotable passages 
full of comfort or guidance or wisdom. It 
is a poetic value, requiring some power of 
literary appreciation to apprehend it. But 
when one comes to it with some degree of 
such capacity, the Book is found to be full 
of unity and force, of gorgeous coloring and 
majestic movement, full of those qualities of 
imagination which, when joined with the 
insight and judgment of a spiritual nature, 
give the power of inspiration. In many 
respects the Apocalypse is like that poem 
which owes so much to it, " Paradise Lost " ; 
the excellences of both are to be sought in 
the same direction. 

It is not a commentary, but a study of 



Dramatic Character of the Apocalypse 3 

materials, which is here aimed at in regard 
to the Apocalypse. What were the condi- 
tions of the mind of the time? What im- 
print was given to those conditions by the 
special characteristics of the author ? What 
were the circumstances of the age which 
made a background for the writer's imagina- 
tion? What the terms of time and place 
in which he set forth the eternal processes 
of the Kingdom of Heaven ? Such a con- 
sideration of elements does not eliminate, 
but exhibits, the directly spiritual qualities — 
the power of reaching men's souls and bring- 
ing them into direct contact with the spirit 
of God — which the age contemporary with 
the Apocalypse recognized abundantly in it, 
which gave it a place in the Canon, and 
which have also been recognized, to some 
degree at least, by the ages since. 

Like all Hebrew prophecy, the Apocalypse 
was designed by its author for the times in 
which he wrote, and had no intended applica- 
tion to future ages. Indeed, he did not con- 
template the possibility that the world would 



4 The Drama of the Apocalypse 

last to future ages, for it was the object of 
his book to assure the Christian community 
that the end of the world would come in a 
very short time, a few years at the utmost. 
But like all Hebrew prophecy too, the author 
was dealing with facts and principles which 
were universal, and the words he uttered 
were too large to fit the immediate circum- 
I stances only. The future is really the same 
as the present ; it is enfolded within it, and 
is governed by the same laws ; and so what 
is true of the universal elements of the pres- 
ent, is true without limitation of time. This 
was expressed and strengthened to the mind 
of a Hebrew by the fact that his language 
had but two tenses, one for an action regarded 
as complete, whether present or past, the 
other for an action still incomplete, whether 
past, present, or future. A prophecy then 
which was true for its own time, was, because 
it dealt with universal elements, true for all 
time ; but the form of it was that of its own 
day and conditions. It was uttered to 
meet present needs, and those present needs 



Dramatic Character of the Apocalypse 5 

must be taken into account if the prophecy 
is to be understood either in its temporary or 
its permanent form. 

The aim of the Apocalypse was to comfort 
and encourage the Christians of the latter 
part of the first century with the thought of 
the speedy end of the world and the establish- 
ment of the kingdom of their Lord. The 
clouds which for the present concealed Him 
from them were soon to roll back and He 
would be seen coming in glory, raising the 
dead, bringing punishment to the wicked 
and rewards to His faithful. The wonderful 
events which had been happening in the 
world of Nature and in that of politics were 
signs that His coming was at hand. There 
was apparently no part of the Christian be- 
lief which took so strong a hold on the im- 
agination of those who had it, as this of the 
visible coming of Jesus to set up His king- 
dom in Jerusalem. His disciples were plan- 
ning for it while they were with Him. Their 
first thought after His resurrection was that 
now it was to be accomplished. 



6 The Drama of the Apocalypse 

We can trace the development of this belief 
in the mind of St. Paul. His earliest Epistle 
is partly an answer to questions about which 
the Thessalonian Church had apparently writ- 
ten to him. It indicates how little the doctrine 
of the resurrection was understood, that their 
difficulty was profound and widespread. The 
question was, Since the reward of the faithful 
would be to share in the kingdom Christ 
would establish, how about those who died 
before the establishment of the kingdom ? 
Their fate seemed hard, for they would be 
debarred from their reward. But St. Paul 
says (i Thess. iv. 1 3 f .) that he and the rest 
of them who will witness the coming of the 
Lord will have no advantage over those 
who had fallen asleep, for there will be a 
sudden shout by an archangel, and Jesus will 
descend from the sky and sit upon the 
clouds, and then the faithful who are dead 
will rise from their graves and be joined by 
the faithful who remain alive, and all to- 
gether will ascend into the air and be for- 
ever with the Lord. And this great event 



Dramatic Character of the Apocalypse 7 

may occur at any moment. This intelligence 
not unnaturally produced confusion in the 
Thessalonian Church. If the coming of the 
Lord might take place at any time, what was 
the use of carrying on longer one's ordinary 
business ? It could not be needed if the 
world was to pass away soon. And so the 
members of the church fell into that disorder 
and antinomianism which the prospect of a 
speedy end of all things has always tended 
to produce. St. Paul therefore writes them 
again (2 Thess. ii. 3), telling them that the 
conditions of the Parousia are not fully ripe, 
and that whenever it may come, soon or late, 
they must abstain from lawlessness and 
anarchy and meet it walking soberly in the 
paths of ordinary life. But it is true, he 
assures them, the Lord will descend from 
Heaven with His mighty angels in flaming 
fire, bringing judgment and glory. 

When now we turn to those Epistles of 
his which hold a middle place in date, we 
find that the details of the Lord's coming 
bear a less prominent part in them. The 



S The Drama of the Apocalypse 

time is short, and one must not be entangled 
with the affairs of this life (i Cor. vii. 29). 
The night is far spent ; it is time to awake, 
for the day is at hand, and their salvation is 
nearer than when they entered the faith 
(Rom. xiii. 11, 12). They are to wait and 
keep blameless until the coming of the Lord 
Jesus Christ (1 Cor. i. 7, S). But the reward 
of the faithful is now regarded not so much 
as rising into the sky to meet the Lord, as a 
spiritual change progressively into the like- 
ness of Christ (2 Cor. iii. iS). And when we 
come to his latest Epistles we find that the 
circumstances of the Parousia are hardly 
mentioned, while its spiritual significance is 
brought still more fully into prominence. 
Our lower natures will be fashioned like the 
glorious body of Christ (Phil. iii. 20, 21). 
We shall be delivered from the power of dark- 
ness and made partakers of the inheritance 
of the saints in light (Col. i. 12, 13). Belief 
in the great fact of the coming of Christ still 
remains; "The Lord is at hand " (Phil. iv. 5); 
but its material dress has become of no 



Dramatic Character of the Apocalypse 9 



importance. And at last the apostle sits in 
prison, an old man, having given up the ex- 
pectation of himself beholding the coming of 
the Lord, but knowing that he shall depart 
and be with Christ, which after all is far 
better (2 Tim. iv. 6; Phil. i. 23). 

This idea of the visible coming of the 
Lord entered most deeply into the mental 
atmosphere of Christian believers of the 
first century. It was to them what the con- 
viction of the superiority of good over evil 
is to us, the centre of their faith, the source 
of their consolation and courage. Many cen- 
turies have shown the spiritual character of 
a belief in which to those who held it first, 
there was no separation between spiritual 
and material. And so it has come to pass 
that while to us the life of Christ marks the 
beginning of an era, to the early Christians 
it marked the end of one. This then was 
the aim of the Apocalypse, to assure them 
that their belief was correct; their triumph 
was sure and was at hand. 

The Book is in the form of a drama. It 



10 The Drama of the Apocalypse 

could hardly have had any other form, for 
the events it has to deal with are essentially 
dramatic, events which step by step inevi- 
tably bring about a final denotement. It is 
interesting to compare it with the other two 
dramas of classic Hebrew literature, the 
Book of Job and Solomon's Song; if, indeed, 
the Book of Job is Hebraic and not Idumean. 
Unlike Solomon's Song, which not improb- 
ably has been often represented at the mar- 
riages and feasts of the kings and nobles of 
Northern Israel, the Apocalypse can never 
have been intended for representation. Yet 
its stages or acts are marked by much greater 
precision than those of the older drama. 
When compared with the Book of Job, the 
changes which time had been working can 
be plainly seen. The Book of Job is an 
example of the meditative tendency of the 
Hebrew mind. The Greek mind delighted 
to consider events in their relations, one 
event as necessarily leading on another; and 
so a series of events, in which there was 
unity, formed, when that unity was exhibited, 



Dramatic Character of the Apocalypse 11 

a drama. The Hebrew mind, on the other 
hand, is idyllic. It loves to pore over a 
thought, examining it from many points of 
view, stating and restating it, brooding upon 
it, seeing in it not so much a problem to be 
solved as a theme to be meditatively dwelt 
upon. The genius of its language is op- 
posed to structural unity. It has no concep- 
tion of a sentence formed otherwise than by 
addition ; its only conjunction is " and." 
Of clauses main and subordinate, relative 
and causal, it knows nothing. It therefore 
rarely attempts to advance by steps to a 
conclusion. So the Book of Job, while we 
may call it dramatic because of its various 
stages and conclusion, yet has really no 
progress in it. It ends where it began, 
with the problem of the suffering of the 
righteous still unsolved, the voice of the 
Almighty silencing questions, but not an- 
swering them. So Jesus gave no systema- 
tized constitution of His kingdom, but He 
illustrated many aspects of it : " The king- 
dom of heaven is like . . In the cen- 



12 The Drama of the Apocalypse 

turies however between the Book of Job 
and the Apocalypse the influence of Greek 
thought had been affecting the Hebrew 
mind, and the form of the Apocalyptic drama 
is therefore far more Greek than Hebrew. 
But it shows its Oriental birth in its use of 
concrete symbols instead of abstract thoughts. 
The Western mind strips off from an idea 
all that is circumstantial and special and 
uses the abstract result as a term to think 
with. The Oriental mind will have nothing 
to do with abstractions, but must embody its 
thought in a concrete form. We are inclined, 
in trying to think in this way, to limit our 
thoughts either to the special image or to 
its significance. For the Oriental this breach 
does not exist, but the symbol and what it 
connotes are the same. This is why apoca- 
lyptic works, such as the books of Daniel 
and Enoch, abound in visions of horses and 
dragons and various beasts. It was not that 
the writer saw these very creatures, but that 
he translated his thought into these concrete 
terms, just as modern metaphysicians trans- 



Dramatic Character of the Apocalypse 13 

late theirs into abstract terms, neither set 
expressing fully the conception of the writer, 
and the nomenclature in each case having to 
be learned before he can be understood. 
There may have been another reason also 
why the ideas of an apocalyptic writer should 
have been expressed not too plainly. Apoca- 
lypses always spring from a dissatisfaction 
with the state of things as they are, and the 
downfall of the existing government there- 
fore has usually a prominent place in them. 
In the Apocalypse of St. John the fall of the 
Roman Empire is announced as near at 
hand. If it had been uttered too plainly, it 
would have attracted too much attention in 
official quarters. Apocalyptic literature must 
always speak chiefly to the initiated. 

Ancient drama, unlike the modern, had no 
formal divisions into acts and scenes. Ob- 
jection may therefore be raised to the imposi- 
tion of this apparently modern form upon the 
Book of the Revelation ; and exception may 
perhaps especially be taken to the dividing 
line here made between the fourth and fifth 



14 The Drama of the Apocalypse 

acts. But the particular points of division 
which may be adopted are of little impor- 
tance. The main thing to be recognized is 
that the poem proceeds by four or five great 
steps, and that in developing each of these, 
subordinate ideas or motifs are introduced. 
Call these acts and scenes, or call them divi- 
sions and subdivisions, it matters little, so long 
as the skeleton of the work is felt as a sustain- 
ing power to its various members, and a guide 
to the understanding of their functions, indi- 
vidually and collectively. 

It is interesting to note the difference of 
attitude toward the Roman Empire exhib- 
ited in the Apocalypse from that in St. Paul's 
Epistles. To St. Paul, proud of his Roman 
citizenship, the State was a friend, which the 
Christian should respect and obey. It saved 
him from a Jewish mob at Jerusalem (Acts 
xxi. 30-34), and its magic name delivered him 
from torture (Acts xxii. 25-30). It is to him 
God's vicegerent (Rom. xiii. 1 ; Tit. iii. 1), 
embodying His authority (Rom. xiii. 4). He 
never came in contact with the practice of 



Dramatic Character of the Apocalypse 15 

compelling the Christians as a test of their 
Christianity to burn incense to the statue of 
the Emperor, the personification of the State. 
This custom belongs to a succeeding reign. 
A change took place in the policy of the 
Empire toward the Christians. Before the 
year 64 a.d. a Christian was not put to death 
as such, but proof was required that he had 
been guilty of some act prejudicial to society. 
After this, however, it was assumed that all 
Christians were guilty of such hostility, and 
might be at once condemned on confession 
of the Name. 1 It was the latter policy which 
prevailed when the author of the Apocalypse 
wrote. He had seen the glare of burning 
Rome in the year 64, and the ghastly tortures 
of the Christians there and throughout the 
provinces. The martyrs of Smyrna, of Per- 
gamos (ii. 10-13), and of the whole Chris- 
tian world (vi. 9-12) stood before him, 
clamoring for vengeance on their oppressor, 
and making faithfulness to the cause seem 

*Cf."The Church in the Roman Empire; 1 Prof. W. H. 
Ramsay, p. 243. 



16 The Drama of the Apocalypse 

the one climactic virtue (ii. 7, et al.). His 
attitude therefore toward the State is that 
of determined hostility. The Church is 
now persecuted by the State (Ch. xiL); but 
her enemy — and what other name can the 
enemy have than that of the ancient arch- 
enemy, Babylon? — will be overthrown and 
destroyed (Ch. xviii.). He interrupts his nar- 
rative of the catastrophe with a burst of exul- 
tation over her downfall, which recalls the 
fierce denunciations of the Imprecatory 
Psalms : " Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and 
ye saints, apostles, and prophets, for God hath 
avenged you on her ! " ( xviii. 20). 

The date of the Book of the Revelation is 
probably the latter half of the year 68 a.d. 
The author knew of the great fire at Rome 
in the year 64 (Ch. xviii.), and he shows 
apparently no acquaintance with the fall of 
Jerusalem, which took place in the year 70. 
Whether he was the Apostle John has been 
much discussed. The epithet " The Divine," 
in the title of the Book, is not in any early 
manuscript. This name was applied to the 



Dramatic Character of the Apocalypse 17 

Apostle John during the Arian controversy 
of the fourth century, in the belief that he 
was the author, by those who wished to 
emphasize the authority of the Book against 
the Arians. It is a name, not an adjective ; 
meaning not " holy " but " theologian." Who- 
ever the author was, he was probably a Jew- 
ish Christian, one, that is, who regarded 
Christianity as a reform of Judaism, not a 
successor to it. To us, with our eyes guided 
by history, it seems plain from the first that 
Judaism had been superseded by Christian- 
ity; but to the men of the apostolic age this 
was by no means evident. There were many 
of them who regarded Jesus as the Messiah, 
who saw no reason why they should not 
observe the Law and carry their sacrifices to 
the Temple as they had always done. It 
was Paul who first saw clearly that the 
dominance of the new meant the subsidence 
of the old ; and it was largely on this account 
that he was distrusted and opposed, not only 
by Jews but by his fellow-Christians of Jewish 
descent. One of these latter was probably 

c 



18 The Drama of the Apocalypse 

the author of the Apocalypse. He sees the 
Messiah's kingdom, its king, the inhabitants 
of it, and the punishment of its enemies, from 
a Jewish point of view. When the nations 
of the earth are saved, they are still regarded 
as over against the twelve tribes of Israel 
(vii. 9). 1 The wedding -garment of the 
Church is the righteousness of the saints 
(xix. 8), that is, the prescribed acts of obedi- 
ence to the Law. The new Jerusalem has 
but twelve gates, and each of these bears the 
name of one of the tribes (xxi. 12). Jesus 
is for the author preeminently the Jewish 
Messiah, the Son of David (v. 5). St. Paul 
is either denounced throughout the Book or 
at least ignored. He has no place among 
the twelve apostles of the Lamb, which are 
the only basis of the Church of God (xxi. 14). 
The Church of Ephesus established by St. 
Paul is especially praised because it has 
" tried them which say they are apostles and 
are not, and hast found them liars " (ii. 2), 
words which cannot but recall the almost 

2 Cf. also "oi fALKpoc" (xix. 5). 



Dramatic Character of the Apocalypse 19 

identical language St. Paul himself uses of 
his opponents of the Jewish-Christian party 
(Gal. ii. 6, 9; 2 Cor. xii. 11), The doctrines 
of the Nicolaitanes and Balaamites (ii. 14, 15) 
are a distortion of those ascribed to St. Paul, 
and of the side which he took when the 
question of Gentile conformity was brought 
before the Church at Jerusalem (Acts xv. 29, 
cf. also 1 Cor. viii. and ix. 5). To the mind 
of the author throughout there is but one 
Church, the old Church of Judaism, which 
remains unshaken by recent heresies, and 
which is to develop a purified Jerusalem, 
where all who are saved of all nations are to 
find their home. Such is the theological 
position of the author in regard to party. 

The setting, so to call it, of his vision 
comes very largely from the books of Ezekiel 
and Daniel. Daniel's mystic numbers with 
much of his Persian angelology and demon- 
ology reappear. Assyria, which for lack of 
quarries was compelled to import its stone, 
and which thus had slabs cut in relief rather 
than statues, probably showed to Ezekiel its 



20 The Drama of the Apocalypse 

human-headed winged bulls, such as are now 
preserved in our museums, and furnished 
him with the imaginative basis for his visions 
of wheels and cherubim (Ezek. i. and x.). 
Through him these impressed themselves 
upon later apocalyptic literature, and gave 
birth to the strange beasts that appear in 
the Book of the Revelation. 

The author's mind is filled with the litera- 
ture of his nation, and it is hard to tell 
whether its tone is more Jewish or Christian. 
The Book shows us, in fact, the union, so far 
as union is possible, of Judaism and Chris- 
tianity. In the Old Testament we see Juda- 
ism. In St. Paul's Epistles we see the most 
distinctive features of Christianity. In the 
Gospels we see the two streams flowing side 
by side. But in the Revelation we see them 
mingled, with no consciousness on the part 
of the author that the result is not homo- 
geneous. 

The apocalypse was the ancient form of 
what we now call the philosophy of history. 
It aimed to classify events, to point out their 



Dramatic Character of the Apocalypse 21 

laws and significance, to show their connec- 
tion with the received scheme of the universe 
and their reach into the future, and to fore- 
cast that future in its necessary mould. And 
so the Apocalypse of St. John, dramatic as 
it is in form, stands as the great Epic of 
the Church, the first Philosophy of Christian 
History. 



CHAPTER II 



SIGNS OF THE TIMES 

THE philosophy of history as a science 
may be claimed as a modern discovery, 
but the belief that history has a philosophy 
was even more common in ancient times 
than in modern, the belief that events were 
part of a plan and were a prelude to some- 
thing greater than themselves. This, which 
might almost be said to constitute the He- 
brew conception of history, would of course 
become more prominent in the popular mind 
at certain times ; at those times when, as we 
say, a great crisis seems imminent. Such a 
crisis, foreseen by the prophets, was called in 
their language a " day of the Lord," and a 
frequent burden of their prophetic work was 
to announce that the "day" was at hand. 

22 



Signs of the Times 23 

Such a time was the middle of the sixth cen- 
tury B.C., when the Jewish nation had been 
for thirty years in captivity at Babylon, the 
time which produced among other works the 
second half of the Book of Isaiah. Such 
a time was the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes, 
which gave birth to the Maccabean struggle 
and to the Book of Daniel. And such a 
time was this in the year 68 a.d., which pro- 
duced the Apocalypse of St. John. 

Together with the belief in the speedy 
coming of the Lord already mentioned was 
the belief that His advent was to be preceded 
by signs. Wars, civil commotions, wonders 
occurring in the sky and on the earth, pesti- 
lences and earthquakes, these were, according 
to the prophets (cf. Joel ii. 10, 30, 31 ; iii. 1 5 ; 
Isa. xiii. 9, 10), the precursors of the coming 
of the great Day of the Lord. And if ever 
the course of events seemed to justify a be- 
lief that the end of the world was at hand, 
certainly it was in the middle of the first 
century. In the year 64 occurred the great 
fire at Rome, which lasted for nine days. 



24 I he Drama of the Apocalypse 

Whatever may have been the belief of Nero 
or of the people in general as to the connec- 
tion of the Christians with it, it was the oc- 
casion for a bloody massacre of them. Their 
Master had told them they should be as 
lights {Xvxyoi) in the world. They became 
such literally, as many of them, clothed in 
shirts of pitch and bound each to a stake, 
were burned to satisfy the mob and light the 
Emperor home. This was the first of that 
series of persecutions which w r as to make 
the early centuries the heroic age of the 
Church. The Empire had long been show- 
ing signs of the inherent weakness of Nero's 
government, and in March 68 an unmistak- 
able sign w r as given by the revolt of the army 
in Gaul under Vindex. This was followed 
in April by the revolt of Galba in Spain. 
The great Roman Empire, whose stability 
men had felt to be bound up with that of the 
world, seemed breaking up. In June the 
army at Rome joined the revolt and pro- 
claimed Galba Emperor. Then the Senate 
declared Nero a public enemy and con- 



Signs of the Times 



25 



demned him to death. When he saw that 
all was lost he escaped to the villa of Phaon, 
one of his freedmen, and here, after begging 
the few who still remained with him to kill 
him, he was at last stabbed in the throat by 
Epaphroditus, just in time to save him from 
being taken alive by the centurion despatched 
by the Senate. But exaggeration of value 
grew after death even in the case of Nero. 
He had always been popular with the crowd, 
who were fond of games, liked his buffoonery, 
and did not dislike his cruelty. And now 
men began to wish him back again. Then 
it began to be whispered that after all he was 
not dead ; that the wound in his throat had 
been healed, and that at the instigation of the 
Parthian ambassador at Rome he had taken 
refuge in Parthia at the court of the Arsa- 
cidae. It is not surprising that doubts of his 
death should have seemed reasonable. There 
had been only four persons present at the time, 
and the body had been cared for and buried 
privately by three of the women who were still 
devoted to him. To realize the death of one 



26 The Drama of the Apocalypse 

who is well known without having seen him 
dead, is difficult even for those who are intelli- 
gent and imaginative, while for those who are 
not imaginative and not intelligent such reali- 
zation is almost impossible. So it is not 
strange that a firm belief sprang up that 
Nero was still alive in some quarter of the 
East, and that he would soon return at the 
head of an Eastern army to overthrow his 
enemies and unite opposing factions. And 
with this belief there was a party of his friends 
strong enough to set up again his statues 
and to issue edicts over his signature (cf. xiii. 
11-18). For eighteen months no one of the 
generals of the legions in revolt could suc- 
ceed in putting down his rivals and making 
good his own claim to priority. It was no 
wonder that the world trembled. For all the 
nations which made up the complex mass 
known as the Roman Empire, however much 
they might wish certain conditions of life 
under it to be different, were yet united in 
wishing it in the main to be preserved. All 
except Judaea; for the death of Nero, and 



Signs of the Times 27 

the anarchy prevalent through the rest of the 
world, made a pause in the Roman prepara- 
tions for the coming siege of Jerusalem, and 
gave the Jews hope of liberty once more. To 
them the fall of Rome would be indeed the 
beginning of the longed-for Messianic king- 
dom. It was no wonder, too, that with such 
a belief in the existence of Nero and his 
return, false Neros should appear here and 
there throughout the Empire, personating 
the Emperor, and that these should intensify 
in the public mind the conviction which had 
made their rise possible. 

The materials out of which signs and 
wonders are made have existed in every 
age. The more intelligent the ages or the 
persons, and the more convinced that every 
event is not an independent happening, but 
is interwoven with a far-reaching chain, so 
much the more will they feel confident that 
each event has a significance beyond itself. 
It depends upon the amount of knowledge 
they happen to possess whether a red glow 
flashing along the sky signifies to them a 



28 The Drama of the Apocalypse 



datum for the discovery of a law of nature 
or the fall of an empire. All ages have 
signs, but different ages interpret them dif- 
ferently. And to the thoughtful mind of 
the middle of the first century the strange 
natural phenomena which had been taking 
place were signs that something mysterious 
was at hand. Brilliant meteors had been 
seen in the sky. The year 66 was the 
period of the earth's passage through that 
belt of aerolites which cuts our orbit every 
thirty years, and showers of shooting stars 
seemed to show that the very heavens could 
fall. Eclipses verified the words of the 
prophet, and men saw the sun turned into 
darkness and the moon into blood. The 
palpitating glow of the red and pale aurora 
seemed to open heaven and give men 
glimpses of the combat of the spiritual 
hosts of good and evil. Just off the coast 
of Asia in the yEgean Sea, ten miles from 
that Patmos which the author of the Apoca- 
lypse claimed as its birthplace, lay the vol- 
canic island of Thera, the modern Pantorin, 



Signs of the Times 29 

which for several years before the year 69 
was in a period of eruption. Vesuvius was 
preparing for its great outbreak in the year 
79; and already in February, 63, Pompeii 
had been almost ingulfed by an earthquake. 
If, as was undoubtedly the case, the au- 
thor of the Apocalypse had been at Rome, 
it is not improbable that he would, like St. 
Paul, have disembarked at Puteoli, and have 
seen on his way to Rome Lake Avernus 
and that series of small volcanic craters, pits 
apparently bottomless, reeking with sulphur 
and vapor, the very ground sending up jets 
of smoke, craters which the ancients be- 
lieved to be the mouths of the infernal re- 
gions, the abode of fallen Titans and evil 
spirits. Fifty years before, forty towns of 
Lydia had been destroyed by an earthquake 
at one blow. In the years 37, 46, 51, and 
53 earthquakes were more or less extensively 
felt throughout Greece, Asia, and Italy. In 
60 almost the whole valley of the Lycus 
was thus destroyed, and after 59 there was 
hardly a year which was not marked by 



30 The Drama of the Apocalypse 

some disaster of the kind. -"' Wars, too, were 
going on in every quarter. The death of 
Nero had at once caused civil war among 
the Roman legions whose commanders were 
ambitious. Jerusalem had not yet fallen, 
but the Roman armies which had been 
sent to subjugate Judaea had perpetrated 
bloody massacres in Galilee. There was 
war beyond the Euphrates, among the Par- 
thians. In addition to the fact that war 
then was in some respects more horrible 
in its circumstances and consequences than 
now, there was one of its incidental results 
which has now wholly disappeared. When 
a number of prisoners had been taken, the 
amphitheatres of the chief cities of the vic- 
torious countries were supplied with them 
for combat with the beasts and for the 
gladiatorial games, and foreign cities also 
supplied their amphitheatres by buying 
numbers of them. In days, too, before 
transportation had been made a science, the 
destruction of the crops and food of a coun- 
try meant not only poverty for the people, 



Signs of the Times 



31 



but starvation. Famine's dark horse was 
a natural follower of the red horse of war; 
and on other occasions, too, it had appeared 
recently. In 68 the exportation of grain 
from Alexandria was insufficient for the 
market dependent on it. A sudden inun- 
dation of the sea had shortly before spread 
desolation throughout Lycia. In 65 a ter- 
rible pestilence broke out at Rome and car- 
ried off thirty thousand, and in the same 
year Campania had been ravaged by cy- 
clones, whose destruction extended to the 
very walls of Rome. If we wish to trace 
the local color which fills the Apocalypse, 
and find the sources from which it rose to 
tinge the author's mind, we must remember 
that intelligence travelled more slowly then 
and portents made a deeper impression, and 
we must look not at Jerusalem only, not 
only at Ephesus and Rome, but through all 
the countries bordering the Mediterranean on 
its centre and east, and even as far as the 
Euphrates, which had not yet ceased to be 
the centre of the power of the Old World. 



32 The Drama of the Apocalypse 

The twenty-fourth chapter of St. Mat- 
thews Gospel in its present form dates 
probably from about this time. In it Jeru- 
salem has apparently been compassed with 
armies, but has not yet fallen. But what- 
ever may be its date, it represents the feeling 
of the Christian mind of the time, that before 
the coming of the Lord to set up His king- 
dom on earth — a consummation of all things 
which was to be expected speedily — there 
would be a general upheaval of the natural, 
political, and social worlds, and that when 
the whole universe seemed thus to be in 
travail, it was the sign that the Lord was 
at hand. And now in the years 68 and 
69 the signs on every side seemed telling 
thoughtful believers with unmistakable plain- 
ness that the time was fulfilled and the Day 
of the Lord was but a few years off at the 
most. Our expectations of the manner in 
which the Kingdom of Heaven is to con- 
quer the world are different from those of 
the Christians of the first century. We be- 
lieve — those of us who believe at all — that 



Signs of the Times 33 

the Kingdom is advancing gradually on every 
side, as the silent tide creeps slowly up a long 
reach of sand, and that it is little by little 
changing the nature of the world from 
within. But to the majority of the early 
Christians its method was rather that of a 
revolt which exists in secret, with its mem- 
bers known to one another and its plans 
matured, which has little or no present effect 
on society, but at the fixed time will sud- 
denly break out and carry all before it, to 
the astonishment and dismay of those who 
are not enrolled among its members. At- 
tention was consequently turned not so much 
to a gradual growth in righteousness, either 
for the world, or, in some cases, as we see 
from the Epistles to the Thessalonians, for 
themselves. What did it matter how they 
passed the few short days before all would be 
made new ? Their gaze was wholly fixed on 
the future. Yet a little while, their Master 
had said while He was with them, and they 
should not see Him ; but yet again a little 
while and they should see Him. And oh, 

D 



34 The Drama of the Apocalypse 

the joy when they should look upon Him 
once more, coming through the clouds with 
thousands of His saints, and they who now 
were despised should find the day of their 
glory begun, and the world should see their 
trust justified! 

It was this message of encouragement and 
consolation that the Book of the Revelation 
was designed to give. The Day of the Lord 
was surely at hand. The marvels which had 
been taking place in the physical and politi- 
cal worlds, while they filled the minds of 
other men with alarm, were to them, the 
Christians, the joyful signs that their deliv- 
erance w r as drawing nigh. And with the 
vision of their Lord standing and sending 
a message of warning and comfort to His 
Church, the poem opens, 



CHAPTER III 



THE DRAMA 



HE proper action of the Apocalyptic 



A drama unfolded for the consolation 
and strengthening of the waiting Title 
Church does not begin until Chap- Prologue 
ter four. What precedes consists of a Title, 
a Prologue, and a Salutation. After stating 
briefly the aim of the book in the Title (i. 
1-4), the author draws out into a Prologue 
(i. 4-20) the motifs briefly mentioned in the 
Title — the purpose of the book, its author- 
ity, and the assurance of the near approach 
of the Lord's advent, with words of warning 
and comfort. To the Greek, inspiration 
came oftenest through the ear; to the He- 
brew, through the eye. The old Greek poet 
invoked the Muse and listened carefully to 
hear her voice, whether within him or with- 




35 



^6 The Drama of the Apocalypse 

out him. It was a Sai/xo^, an inward monitor 
which, Socrates said, gave him imperative 
direction. But the Hebrew prophet, as he 
sat meditating, saw before him visions, in 
which problem and answer revealed them- 
selves clothed in concrete forms. And so, 
as the prophets prefaced the announcement 
of their visions with a " Thus saith the Lord," 
the author of the Revelation tells in the Pro- 
logue, in a way w r hich must have reminded 
his readers of the calls of Isaiah (Isa. vL) and 
Ezekiel (Ezek. i. and iL), how he w r as com- 
missioned by the Divine messenger whom 
he saw with the burden which he was about 
to deliver. 

It w r as the Lord's Day, and he was " in the 
spirit," when suddenly he heard behind him 
a voice clear and sonorous as a trumpet. He 
turns to see the speaker, and there before 
him is the figure of his risen Lord ; not now 
as w T hen He stood before Pilate, nor as when 
He walked with His disciples in the fields of 
Galilee, but clothed with majesty and power. 
With the habit of mind already referred to, 



The Drama 37 

the Seer ascribes to the figure of his vision 
attributes which do not make a unity when 
literally interpreted by the understanding, 
but which are symbols for the imagination. 
The figure which he sees is like that of a 
man clothed in priestly dress, one who cor- 
responds to the lofty type seen in former 
Apocalyptic visions (cf. Dan. x. 6), who yet 
bears also likeness to Almighty God (i. 8, 11). 
His hair is white with the wisdom of age, 
His eyes glow with the fire of youth, and His 
whole face is dazzling in its brilliance. His 
feet are firm and stable, His words are sharp 
and powerful, and His voice is like that of 
the sea. It is the risen Christ, the worlds 
soon-appearing King. The Seer falls pros- 
trate before Him in awe. But the Divine 
being raises him and gives him His commis- 
sion, bidding him bear the message he shall 
receive to the Seven Churches of Asia. 
Jesus had said that a faithful disciple of 
His was like a candle fitted to its due can- 
dlestick. So here the Seven Churches 
appear surrounding their Master as well- 



38 The Drama of the Apocalypse 

appointed lamps, standing beside Him, as 
the great seven-branched candelabrum stood 
near the altar of incense in the Temple 
(2 Chron. xiii. 1 1). 

Then comes the Salutation (Chs. ii. and iii.), 
the address to the audience, as it were, before 
the drama begins. The use of seven 

Salutation 

as a perfect number makes it prob- 
able that it was the Christian Church through- 
out Asia Minor that the author had in view 
as audience, and not only the seven particular 
churches specified ; especially since we find 
here (i. 3) the same directions for having the 
missive read in the churches that St. Paul 
was accustomed to give (Col. iv. 16). 

The first Act then begins, which has to do 
with the Day of the Lord as made ready by 

the Roman Empire. First comes 
Act 1 1 

an introduction to the Act, descrip- 
tive of the scenery. The Seer looks through 
a window which is opened in the sky and 
sees Heaven. The same mighty being whose 
appearance had been described in the Pro- 
logue then transports him into the midst 



The Drama 



39 



of Heaven, and afterward accompanies him 
from place to place in it (xxii. 8), as Virgil 
served for guide to Dante. Here is the 
Court of Heaven, seen in the midst of its 
ordinary occupations, just as it is eternally 
while men are going about their daily pur- 
suits. In the midst of Heaven he sees God 
sitting on His throne, surrounded by a rain- 
bow. It is noteworthy how completely the 
best traditions of Hebrew religious usage, 
that God could not be visibly represented, 
and that His very name was unspeakable, 
had penetrated the national imagination and 
literature. His original name indeed, unpro- 
nounced for many centuries, had become 
lost ; so that when men saw the letters which 
stood in part for it, they could only, with a 
mixture of reverence and ignorance, call it 
"the Lord." On this subject the literary 
imagination had no materials with which to 
work. The author of the Revelation could 
find in the prophets and the more recent 
Apocalyptic literature plenty of material from 
which to construct his visions of the Court 



40 The Drama of the Apocalypse 

of Heaven and of the Last Judgment, of 
Jesus as the King of glory, and of the new 
Jerusalem. But when it attempted to picture 
God, it was powerless. He could say noth- 
ing but " He that sat on the throne was to 
look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone." 
In that Divine aspect were blended some- 
thing of the glow and passion of the ruby, 
something of the clearness and depth of the 
; diamond. That was all he could say. The 
rainbow was a part of the furniture of the 
Divine throne, like the sceptre which to us 
is associated with the throne of an earthly 
king, and when it appeared in the sky it was 
regarded as lent for the occasion and there- 
fore as a mark of special grace (cf. Gen. ix. 
1 2-18). But here it stands in its normal 
place, while thunder and lightning and voices 
come perpetually from the throne. " In the 
midst of the throne," that is, in the semi- 
circle before the throne, stand four composite 
Creatures, representative of the Divine attri- 
butes manifested in creation, and from them 
rises continually that voice of the universe 



The Drama 



41 



in praise to God which the ear of the He- 
brew poet was always hearing. These Crea- 
tures are another instance of the disregard 
of the Oriental mind in its symbolism for 
producing a unity for the understanding. It 
wishes to assert that its god is wise, and it 
ascribes to him the head of a man. It be- 
lieves he is strong, and says he has the body 
of a bull. It aims to picture his omnipres- 
ence, and it represents him as having many 
wings or, as with the Indian gods, many arms. 
It wishes to ascribe to him the attributes of 
majesty and dominion, and it says that he is 
like a lion, or that seven thunders perpetually 
utter their voices in his presence. One de- 
tail after another is added to the image with 
no thought as to their material incongruity, 
nor their unnaturalness when pictured by the 
imagination. The demand that a poetic con- 
ception shall be naturalistically correct when 
imagined, is wholly a modern one, and when 
insisted on, often obscures from the spectator 
the author's conception. That the images 
described in the Apocalypse are unnatural 



42 The Drama of the Apocalypse 

and absurd when literally pictured, would 
not then have been felt as an objection, any 
more than we now feel it an objection to a 
statue that it has a color which no human 
being ever has. 

Ranged in a semicircle, on each side of 
the throne, are seats for Twenty-four Elders, 
men of wisdom and age, representatives of 
worthy humanity, the Church; the number 
being taken from the twenty-four courses of 
the Jewish priesthood, or from the judicial 
council of the Sanhedrim. 1 These, from 
time to time, throughout the drama, together 
with the Four Creatures, act the part of the 
Greek chorus ; never criticising, however, as 
that chorus did, but amplifying the motif 
which is being set forth and praising God. 
From the throne as a centre there stretches 
away on every side a vast expanse, like the 
sea, clear and shining. It is the floor of 
Heaven, the upper side of the sky, of that 

1 Dr. E. C. Selwyn (" The Christian Prophets and the 
Prophetic Apocalypse") thinks that the author's familiarity 
with judicial procedure indicates that he had been a member 
of the Sanhedrim. 



The Drama 



43 



" firmament " which the mind of antiquity 
conceived as forming the ceiling of the 
world. In the right hand of God is the 
Book of Fate, closed and sealed with seven 
seals ; and when a celestial herald has pro- 
claimed throughout Heaven a challenge to 
any one who is worthy, to come forward and 
open the seals, no one appears. Then when 
the Seer beholds this, when he sees the knowl- 
edge of the future, the only hope of the 
Christian, withheld from him, he bursts into 
tears. What is the use of beholding the 
secrets of Heaven if its most precious secret 
still remains hidden ? But — and with this 
chapter the second scene of the Act begins — 
he is bidden not to weep, for one is found 
who is worthy to open the Book. And with 
this Jesus comes forward and takes the Book 
from the hand of God. As He takes it, a 
mighty chorus bursts forth from Heaven 
and earth and sky and sea, a chorus of 
praise to Him who has redeemed men, and 
who is about to reveal to them their future 
glory. The Four Creatures and the Twenty- 



44 The Drama of the Apocalypse 

four Elders fall down before Him; angels, 
whose ranks stretch off as far as the eye can 
reach, in number "ten thousand times ten 
thousand and thousands of thousands," take 
up the song ; the earth from below, with all 
its living beings, is heard joining in the sol- 
emn chorus, which closes with a deep 
" Amen " from the Four Creatures who com- 
menced it, while the Twenty-four Elders wor- 
ship Him who holds the Book. Then Jesus 
the Christ begins to unfold it, opening one 
seal at a time. As each of the first four seals 
is opened, there comes a voice from one of 
the Four Creatures, like the pedal of an or- 
gan, " Come and see ! " 1 while there passes 
across the stage a ghastly and grim proces- 
sion. On their horses, white, red, black, and 
gray, appear, one after another, the victorious 
Roman Empire, with War, Famine, and 
Death. But as this terrible train passes on, 
and the fifth seal is opened, the attention of 
the Seer is directed to the altar which stands 
in the open space before the throne of God 

1 The Revisers 1 text omits the words " and see." 



The Drama 



45 



and the seats of the Elders, and to the cavity 
within it, corresponding to that into which, 
in the altar of the Jewish temple, the drink- 
offerings were poured. There he sees the 
souls of the martyrs — for the year 64 was 
still fresh in the memory of the Christian 
Church. They raise their voices to God, 
crying out for justice, and for the avenging 
of their blood on this terrible Roman Empire 
with its train. But no, the time is not yet 
come. The victor's white robe is given to 
each of them, and they are bidden to wait in 
patience for a while, until their brethren, who 
are yet to suffer as martyrs on the earth, shall 
join them. The sixth seal is opened, and 
the Seer beholds the convulsions of Nature, 
which had been filling men's minds, exhib- 
ited as indeed the precursive signs of the 
Day of the Lord, which now with the open- 
ing of the last seal may be expected to be- 
gin. The angels who hold in check the four 
winds of the four quarters of the earth 
take their stations ready to loose the winds 
for the earths final destruction. But an 



46 Tlie Drama of the Apocalypse 

angelic herald comes hurrying from Heaven, 
bidding them delay until the righteous have 
been preserved from the evil that is coming, 
that they may not be overtaken by the catas- 
trophe which is to overwhelm the wicked. 
Then, as the Israelites in Egypt were 
marked that the destroyer might pass over 
them, he proceeds to seal the elect in their 
foreheads, with God's signet, which he car- 
ries ; and the Seer, from his post in Heaven, 
hears announced the number of those who 
are sealed. It is 144,000, the complete num- 
ber of all the tribes of Israel. At the same 
moment this great host becomes visible, 
standing before God's throne, clothed, like the 
victors in the games, with white robes, and 
palm branches in their hands. As they raise 
a chorus of thanksgiving to God for their 
deliverance, all the angels and Elders and the 
Four Creatures break out again into the song 
which they sang before, ending with the same 
deep " Amen." And while the Seer stands 
gazing at this great multitude, one of the 
Elders tells him who they are. " These 



The Drama 



47 



are they which came out of great tribula- 
tion, and have washed their robes and made 
them white in the blood of the Lamb. 
Therefore, are they before the throne of God 
and serve Him day and night in His temple ; 
and He that sitteth on the throne shall dwell 
among them. They shall hunger no more, 
neither thirst any more; neither shall the 
sun strike on them, nor any heat. For the 
Lamb which is in the midst of the throne 
shall feed them, and shall lead them unto liv- 
ing fountains of waters ; and God shall wipe 
away all tears from their eyes." 

The seventh seal is opened. And now 
we expect the fulfilment of all things and 
the end of time. But, as says a writer who 
has ably set forth the dramatic nature of the 
Apocalypse, 1 "the fundamental idea of the 
poem is to show the Great Judgment con- 
tinually postponed at the moment when it 
seems as if it must take place. 2 ... In the 

1 Renan, " L'Antechrist," Ch. xvi. pp. 388, 391. 

2 For a similar suspension of the dramatic development, 
cf. that which takes place after the opening of the fifth and 
sixth seals ; also x. 6, I.e. 



48 The Drama of the Apocalypse 

poem, as in reality, the catastrophe is forever 
fleeing. Now, we think, it has arrived ; but 
nothing occurs. In place of the final denote- 
ment, which was to be the result of the open- 
ing of the seventh seal, there is a silence in 
Heaven for half an hour, indicating that the 
first Act of the Mystery is ended and another 
is about to begin." 1 

The first Act was the opening of the 
seals, and pointed chiefly to the Roman 

Empire and its train as precursive 
Act ii . r . r 

signs of the coming of the Day of 

the Lord. The second Act is the sounding 

of the archangels' trumpets, and deals chiefly 

with the convulsions of nature, which had 

been taking place. These the author has 

indeed referred to (vi. 12), but he now dwells 

on them more in detail. But as the seven 

archangels, whose place is before God's 

throne, are about to blow the trumpets 

which are now given them, there occurs 

an episode or introductory scene, as in the 

1 The division into chapters and verses in the A. V. is of 
course to be disregarded ; viii. i is properly the conclusion 
of Ch. vii, just as xxii. 2 ? /.£., belongs to xxii. i, as in the R. V. 



The Drama 



49 



case of the first, third, and fourth Acts. 1 An 
angel comes to the altar, which stands in the 
semicircle before the Elders' seats and the 
throne, and throws incense upon it ; and as 
the smoke rises, he fills his censer with the 
coals and casts them down to the earth. 
The incense, we are told, is the prayers of 
the saints; and these prayers, rising in 
silence to God, and calling for the destruc- 
tion of the w 7 icked world where the saints 
have suffered, turn to burning coals, de- 
stroying and consuming the earth wherever 
they strike. 

And now the seven archangels prepare 
to sound the trumpets which they hold. At 
the sound of the first trumpet there bursts 
upon the earth a storm with lightning and 
bloody hail. At the sound of the second a 
volcanic island appears in the sea (cf. what 
was said of Thera, p. 24). At the sound of 
the third a burning meteor falls from Heaven. 
With the fourth a darkness as of an eclipse 
— a phenomenon always mysterious and ter- 

1 Cf. Chs. iv., xi., xv. 

E 



50 The Drama of the Apocalypse 

rible in early ages — covers the earth. As 
the fifth angel sounds, the entrance to the 
infernal regions is unclosed, and with the 
smoke that streams forth there comes an 
army apparently of scorpions which spread 
over the earth and work destruction upon 
it ; but as this is a Divine plague, it is com- 
manded not to harm Gods sealed elect. 
Possibly the imagination of the Seer had 
for its basis in this vision the sulphurous 
pits filled with noxious reptiles near Puteoli, 
to which reference has already been made. 1 
After the sounding of the fourth trumpet 
there occurs some delay — a delay which re- 
curs after the fifth and sixth trumpets also. 
It is, as has been said, 2 a part of the plan of 
the poem to exhibit the delays in the estab- 
lishment of Christ's Kingdom, under which it 
was so hard to remain faithful, as part of God's 
eternal purpose, and therefore as steps, not 
hindrances, to the Kingdom's development. 
The non-appearance of the Kingdom must 
therefore be not disregarded, but emphasized. 
1 p. 29. 2 p. 47. 



The Drama 



51 



The first five trumpets have been fol- 
lowed by convulsions of nature. The sixth 
brings with it a plague which must have 
seemed as startling as any convulsion of 
nature, so sudden and destructive and ter- 
rible was it whenever it occurred. In the 
absence of the means of rapid communica- 
tion, the coming of an invading army was 
often not announced until it fell upon the 
destined country, and all the convulsions of 
nature combined could hardly be more dis- 
astrous than such an army's presence. The 
whole Roman world had for a long time 
been expecting almost daily an invasion of 
the Parthians. And now the Seer beholds 
the dreaded Parthian cavalry pouring forth 
from beyond the Euphrates, breathing out fire 
and smoke and destroying a third of man- 
kind. But all these plagues have no regen- 
erating effect upon the world. Men still 
continue in their evil ways, and by so 
doing make more imminent the judgment 
of the Day of the Lord, which is to burst 
upon the earth at the sounding of the 



52 The Drama of the Apocalypse 

seventh trumpet. All things are prepared 
for the end. A herald comes from God, 
and standing with one foot on the sea and 
the other on the land utters in a mighty 
voice the secrets of the future. The Seer 
is about to write and announce the mystery 
of the Kingdom of Heaven thus revealed 
to him, when he is bidden to desist. The 
secrets of God can never be told in a word 
nor learned in a moment. Experience 
alone can reveal them to men. And so 
here again as in the first Act, the end of 
all things, ever imminent, is ever postponed. 
Instead of the sound of the last trump 
there comes a delay. The mighty herald 
promises that there shall soon be delay (A. V. 
" time ") no longer, but that when the seventh 
angel's trumpet shall sound the mystery of 
God shall be finished. Meanwhile the Seer 
is told that his burden is not simply to an- 
nounce the deep things of God, — how easy 
if that were the preacher's only work ! — 
but that he has a mission in translating 
generals into particulars; he must reveal 



The Drama 



53 



their destinies to many rulers and nations. 
And thus, his imagination filled with the 
striking figure of the old prophet (Ezek. 
iii. i), who represented himself as devouring 
the written words of God, the Seer takes 
from the angelic herald the Book contain- 
ing the destinies of the nations and eats it. 
After he has eaten it, he is at once filled 
with a new T message, and with the mingling 
of sweetness and pain which it is the char- 
acteristic of divine truth, when vividly felt, 
to inspire. 

Here is the turning-point in the action 
of the drama. Hitherto the first and second 
Acts have had reference chiefly to events 
which had actually taken place on the 
earth, or were taking place at the time the 
author wrote, his aim being to show them 
as signs of the coming of the Day of the 
Lord. But now he passes to the future. 
He sees the Kingdom of Heaven estab- 
lished, as indeed it will be in a short time ; 
and the remainder of his poem is occupied 
with portraying the results for the saints 



54 The Drama of the Apocalypse 

and for the wicked nations of the world, of 
its establishment. 

Jerusalem must inevitably be the scene 
of action ; for the Jewish imagination, even 
when joined with Christian ideas, could 
conceive of no other place as the radiating 
centre of the Kingdom of Heaven upon 
earth. The Seer now has revealed to him 
the events which are to take place in the 
short time, three years and a half, which is 
to elapse before the kingdom is established 
at Jerusalem. The three years and a half, 
forty-two months, must be taken as a round 
number, though the writer sometimes com- 
putes it in days for the sake of greater ap- 
parent certainty. It is just half of the 
sacred week of seven years which played 
so prominent a part in the Jewish social 
economy (cf. Lev. xxv. 1-7), and which is 
sometimes used, like the numbers 3 , 7, 12, 
and 40 in other connections, to express 
unity of time. It was the current belief in 
the Jewish Church that a divine witness 
would be sent, before the advent of the 



The Drama 



55 



Messiah, to announce His coming and pre- 
pare the world for it (cf. Mai. iv. 5, 6; St. 
John i. 19, 25; St. Matt. xvL 14). It was 
also a widespread belief that the final judg- 
ment would be preceded by two witnesses, 
who would " pacify the wrath of the Lord s 
judgment before it broke forth into fury, 
and turn the heart of the father unto the 
son, and restore the tribes of Jacob " (Ecclus. 
xlviii. 10). These messengers were differ- 
ently identified with Enoch, Moses, Elijah, 
and Jeremiah. 1 In the passage now before 
us the author may have had in view two 
persons of prominence in the Church, then 
or recently living in Jerusalem. At all 
events, the two prophetic witnesses whose 
life and words are to usher in the great 
judgment are seen undergoing in these 
three years and a half the fate of all out- 
spoken witnesses to the truth : prophesying, 
accomplishing wonders, bearing down op- 
position, but finally overcome and killed, 
amid the exultation of those who felt their 

*Cf. with this belief, St. Matt. xvii. 3. 



56 The Drama of the Apocalypse 

presence a rebuke to themselves. But these 
two martyrs do not have to wait for their 
justification, for they are at once raised 
from the dead and taken up into Heaven, 
while a great earthquake shakes the world. 
Their exulting enemies, alarmed by this 
apotheosis and the earthquake, are converted 
and give glory to God. 

The fulness of the Gentiles is now come 
in, and there is no more occasion for delay. 
The seventh angel sounds. It is the last 
trump so long expected which is to bring in 
the Kingdom of the glory of the Lord and 
of His Christ. At once solemn voices pro- 
claim throughout Heaven that the Kingdom 
is established. The Twenty-four Eiders fall 
down before God and worship with their 
choral song: — 

"We give Thee thanks, Lord God Al- 
mighty, which art and which wast, because 
Thou hast taken Thy great power and dost 
reign. And the nations were wroth, and 
Thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead 
is come to be judged, and the time to give 



The Drama 



57 



their reward to Thy servants the prophets, 
and to the saints, and to them that fear Thy 
name, the small and the great, and to destroy 
them that destroy the earth." 

The Kingdom of God is established. The 
great event for which the Christian heart 
has waited with longing has hap- 

. ° Act III 

pened. But the mind of the Seer 
has been so long occupied with signs that he 
cannot turn at once from this employment, 
so congenial to Apocalyptists, to seize and 
set forth merely the central facts of the 
glory of the newly established Kingdom 
with its results affecting the good and the 
evil on the earth. The logical development 
of a plan is not to be expected of him. He 
is less concerned with due proportion in the 
unfolding of his plot than with pouring forth 
the visions with which his imagination has 
been filled by the older Apocalypses. In the 
third Act, in the twelfth and thirteenth 
chapters, he gives a series of visions which 
have comparatively little to do with the 
movement of the drama, though they enrich 



58 The Drama of the Apocalypse 

it with color, and were no doubt adapted to 
the consolation of those who lived in the 
midst of the events they symbolically 
describe. 

The first of these visions is of the Church, 
that is, the Jewish Church. To us w T ho see 
the long centuries of the life of Christianity 
and its clearly developed individual exist- 
ence, it is difficult to conceive it as a mere 
phase, even an improved phase, of Judaism. 
But to the devout Jewish Christian of the 
first century, the Church of his fathers, stretch- 
ing back indefinitely into the past, was still 
the only Church, and Christianity, with all 
its wonderful future, to him unforeseen, was 
but a passing phase of it. In his vision the 
Seer looks back and sees the Church in 
travail with her mysterious birth, the Messiah. 
He sees the persecutions to which she is sub- 
jected by her arch-enemy, the Roman Empire, 
with its seven Caesars and ten provincial 
proconsuls. And he sees that the contest 
between the woman and the dragon is but a 
part of the mighty war going on in Heaven, 



The Drama 



59 



as well as on earth, between the powers of 
good and of evil. 

Strict consistency in the use of images and 
their mutual exclusiveness must no more be 
demanded from an Apocalyptist than fidelity 
to nature. That he has represented an idea 
in one form is no bar to his representing it 
in another. And so in his next vision the 
Roman Empire, just now a dragon, becomes 
a beast from across the sea, having the same 
chief marks as before, seven heads and ten 
horns ; but this time attention is drawn to 
one of the heads, which has in it a deadly 
wound, partly or wholly healed. The dragon 
of the previous vision, even in it, was alter- 
nately the Roman Empire and Satan — for 
were not the two synonymous? And now 
Satan appears as this beast, while another 
beast, whose identification is doubtful, acts as 
assistant to the first and procurer of honor 
for him. The head with its deadly wound 
healed is so prominent in the writers imagi- 
nation that he speaks of it and of the beast 
to which it belongs as identical. He then 



60 The Drama of the Apocalypse 

gives the name of the beast in a form in 
which it would be known only to the ini- 
tiated. " Here is wisdom," he exclaims ; " let 
him that hath understanding count the num- 
ber of the beast, for it is the number of a 
man ; and his number is six hundred three- 
score and six." 

Writing in cipher was as well known to 
the ancient world as to the modern ; and the 
use of numbers for names, even where no 
other concealment is used, has often been 
a favorite form of cipher. 1 Sometimes the 
number is a purely arbitrary one. Some- 
times, as here, its composition can be traced 
in the circumstances of the case. In most 
ancient languages each letter was also a 
numeral. The letters of a name then could 
be translated into figures, and these figures 
added into a number that should stand for 
the name it was desired to express covertly. 

1 " I was as confident, till you tell me you believe it, that the 
devil himself cannot decypher a letter that is well written, or 
find that 100 stands for Sir H. Vane." — Correspondence of 
Edward Hyde, afterward Earl of Clarendon^ with Dr. John 
Barwick, Feb. 20, 1659-60. 



The Drama 



61 



The letters of the name " Nero Caesar " in 
its Hebrew form make up the number 666. 1 
That care was necessary in connecting politi- 
cal personages or events with prophecy may 
be seen in a book some twenty years earlier 
in date, the Second Epistle to the Thessa- 
lonians, where the periphrases of St. Paul are 
almost as difficult to unravel as a cipher. 
He warns those to whom he writes that the 
Day of the Lord will not come "except the 
falling away come first, and the man of sin 
be revealed, the son of perdition, he that op- 
poseth and exalteth himself against all that 
is called God or that is worshipped ; so that 
he sitteth in the temple of God, setting him- 
self forth as God. Remember ye not that 
when I was yet with you I told you these 
things ? And now ye know what restraineth, 
to the end that he may be revealed in his 
own season. For the mystery of lawlessness 

1 3 = 50, 1 = 200, 1 = 6, J = 50, p = ioo ? D = 60, 1 = 200 
= IDp JTTJ = 666. 

The shorter Latin form for Nero, 113, would give 616 
which is mentioned by Irenaeus as an ancient reading here for 
666. For list of various opinions, cf. De Wette or Diisterdieck 
in loc. 



62 The Drama of the Apocalypse 

doth already work ; only there is one that 
restraineth now, until he be taken out of the 
way. And then shall be revealed the lawless 
one, whom the Lord Jesus shall slay with the 
breath of His mouth, and bring to nought by 
the manifestation of His coming, even he 
whose coming is according to the working 
of Satan, with all power and signs and lying 
wonders." 1 Such obscurity, obscure in the 
original as in the translation, could not have 
been accidental, but must have been inten- 
tional. It was designed to conceal the thought 
as well as to reveal it. St. Paul was saying 
in effect to his friends in Thessalonica : " He 
that hath ears to hear, let him hear. Unto 
you it is given to know the mysteries of the 
Kingdom of Heaven, but unto them that are 
without it is not given; that seeing, they 
may see and may not perceive, and hearing, 
they may not understand." 2 

1 2 Thess. ii. 3-10. 

2 Instances of cryptograms in the Old Testament are Jer. 
xxv. 26 ; where by using the second and twelfth letters from 
the end of the alphabet instead of from the beginning, 
"Sheshach" is written instead of "Babel," i.e. Babylon. 



The Drama 63 

So the author of the Revelation aimed to 
write in such a manner as should be intelli- 
gible to the initiated, but should pass unno- 
ticed by the authorities or remain hidden 
from them. He has said it. The Beast, 
the arch-enemy of the Christian Church, the 
great Antichrist, is Nero, the mighty Emperor. 
Nero was still alive, according to the popular 
belief, 1 and would return from the East. 
And it will not seem surprising that the 
author, after having designated Nero by one 
of the heads of the Beast, should then think 
of the whole Beast as Nero, if we remember 
that the logic of a vision is spiritual rather 
than formal, and that its progress is not so 
much a necessary sequence of mutually 
exclusive ideas as a succession of pictures, 
which must seem arbitrary unless their inner 
connection is perceived. 

But while the Seers gaze is bent upon 
Jerusalem in these dark days of the last 
times, he sees a brighter vision. It is inter- 
Also probably Isa. vii. 6, where by a different system " Tabeal " 
stands for " Remaliah." 1 Cf. p. 25. 



64 The Drama of the Apocalypse 

esting to note in the Old Testament the 
Jew's conviction that the moral worth of 
his nation's little strip of territory made it 
the peer of the broadest and most favored 
country in the word. Princes were to come 
out of Egypt, and Ethiopia was to stretch 
out her hands toward Israel on account 
of the God who dwelt within her borders. 1 
So, too, Mount Zion, a hill in the southwest- 
ern part of Jerusalem, only 450 feet above 
the bottom of the valley at its base, was to 
the exultant mind of the Jew loftier than the 
highest of mountains. " The hill of God is 
as the hill of Bashan (i.e. Mount Hermon, the 
highest mountain known to the Hebrews), 
an high hill, as the hill of Bashan. Why 
leap ye, ye high hills ? This is the hill 
which God desireth to dwell in ! " 2 And 
now as the Seer's gaze is directed upon 
Jerusalem, he sees this spot, the centre of 
the world's righteousness, at last publicly 
exhibited as such. The Church, the true 
Israel, the 144,000 that comprise all the faith- 

1 Ps. lxviii. 31. 2 Ps. lxviii. 15, 16. 



The Drama 



65 



ful of the earth, appear surrounding their 
King upon the Temple-hill, Mount Zion. 
They break out into their choral song, 
which the listening Seer has already heard 
in Heaven, while the great orchestra of the 
universe, harps and thunders and " the voice 
of many waters," gives its accompaniment. 

It lends perhaps color to the traditional 
belief that the Revelation was written at 
Patmos, to note how the author is impressed 
by the " voice of many waters " as one of 
the prominent and majestic tones of nature. 
No inland-dweller could have felt this; but 
there is a peculiar fitness in its selection as 
one of the elements of the heavenly orches- 
tra, if we may think of it as perpetually 
sounding in the ears of the writer as he 
walked the rocky shores of Patmos. It is 
possible, too, that we may see a reflection 
of his insular condition in his statement that 
in the new Heaven and new earth which he 
saw "there was no more sea." His isolated 
position, if such it was, would have accen- 
tuated his race characteristics. For while 

F 



66 The Drama of the Apocalypse 

to us the sea is a means of communication 
and civilization, to the Hebrews it was a 
type of separation and destructiveness and 
an object of dread. Greece, with its deeply 
indented coast, produced a nation of mariners 
and bound itself through them to every part 
of the world. The Hebrews, on the other 
hand, possessed but one port, 1 and their 
maritime commerce was always small. The 
sea held with them much the same place 
that the forest holds in mediaeval literature,— 
a region lying beyond civilized habitations, 
largely unknown, and inhabited by strange 
beasts and strange men, into which prudent 
people did not venture,. They knew but 
little about it from experience. As the 
Psalmist stood on a hill and looked upon 
the blue line of the Mediterranean in the 
distance, he saw more with his imagination 
than with his eyes : " This great and wide 
sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, 

1 I.e. Joppa. Dor (cf. LXX.), Accho, Achzib, and Zidon 
were within the territory assigned to the tribe of Asher; 
but the Asherites never acquired possession of them. Cf. 
Judges i. 31,32. 



The Drama 



67 



both small and great beasts. There go the 
ships. There is that leviathan, whom Thou 
hast formed to sport with him." 1 Those 
who go down to the sea have a special 
opportunity for seeing the dread works of 
the Lord in mighty waves, sea-sickness, 
storm, and calm. 2 The ships of Tarshish 
are enumerated among the worldly pomps 
which shall be brought low ; 3 and though 
the ideal Jerusalem of the future shall be 
surrounded by broad rivers and streams, 
yet there shall be no boat nor ship upon 
them. 4 It was apparently not only a dis- 
approval of the foreign policy of King 
Jehoshaphat, but also a feeling that naval 
affairs were unbecoming a godly man, which 
made the Chronicler take a grim satisfac- 
tion in recording that the king's ships, which 
he had taken such pains to construct, never 
made a voyage, for " they were broken, that 
they were not able to go to Tarshish." 5 And 



1 Ps. civ. 25, 26. 2 Ps. cvi. 23-31. 

3 Isa. ii. 16. 4 Isa. xxxiii. 21. 

5 2 Chron. xx. 35-37. 



68 The Drama of the Apocalypse 

to a non-seafaring people the threat for 
disobedience was peculiarly severe — that 
they should be carried back to Egypt "in 
ships." 1 But the conditions of the heavenly 
Kingdom precluded all alien, divisive ele- 
ments, and therefore in the new earth there 
would be " no more sea." 2 

Now that the Kingdom of Jesus is thus 
set up on earth, three angels fly to the zenith 
and proclaim there, as from a new Sinai, 
the Law of the new Kingdom — that is, the 
everlasting Gospel — and announce the fall 
of the arch-enemy, Rome. The mention of 
Rome and of the Beast could but recall to 
every mind the persecutions of the year 64, 
in which so many of the faithful had per- 
ished, and also arouse again a question which 
troubled deeply the minds of the devout 
Christians of the middle of the first century. 
As they saw the years passing on, and one 
and another of their friends falling asleep, 

1 Deut. xxviii. 68. 

2 On the effect of the scenery of Patmos upon the author of 
the Revelation, cf. Dean Stanley's Sermons in the East, 
" Patmos." 



The Drama 



69 



while their Lord still delayed His coming, 
they anxiously asked what would be the 
condition of those who were not alive to see 
the Lord and to meet Him ? Were they to 
be cut off from the blessed privileges of the 
Parousia? This is the matter which St. Paul 
explains so fully in several of his epistles. 1 
And now the prophet of the Apocalypse 
hears a voice bidding him write for the com- 
fort of such troubled souls that from this 
time henceforth those who die in the Lord 
are blessed as well as those who remain and 
are alive at His coming. " Blessed are the 
dead which die in the Lord/' says the voice, 
"from henceforth," Then follow angels 
who represent symbolically the harvesting 
of the earth, the gathering-in of those on 
whom the judgment is to be passed. 

Now begins a new Act of the drama. 
The faithful who have not done 

Act IV 

homage to the Beast are gathered 

out of the earth, so that the seven last 

1 i Cor. xv. 50-53; 1 Thess. iv. 13-18; 2 Thess. i. 7- 
ii. 9. 



70 The Drama of the Apocalypse 

plagues, which are to be sent upon the 
earth as its punishment, may not hurt them. 
Across the stage there passes a majestic 
procession. Out of the Temple come seven 
angels, clothed in white with girdles of gold, 
and as they pass the Four Creatures, one of 
the latter gives to each of them a golden 
bowl or vial, like that in which the priests 
offered the propitiatory blood in the Temple 
sacrifices, but this was "full of the wrath of 
God." When all have received the golden 
bowls, a voice comes from the Temple, " Go 
your ways, and pour out the vials of the 
wrath of God upon the earth." One after 
another the angels pass on and empty the 
bowls, and groan after groan arises, as 
plagues like those of Egypt — disease, blood, 
fire, and darkness — fall upon the earth and 
its inhabitants. According to popular be- 
lief, as already mentioned, 1 Nero was still 
alive beyond the Euphrates, and would 
return at the head of a Parthian army to 
regain his Empire. This appears, to the 

ip. 25. 



The Drama 



71 



author of the Apocalypse, 1 an infernal plan, 
arranged by Satan, Nero, and his attendant. 2 
For although the great battle which would 
follow the return of Nero would be in the 
first instance against the power of Rome, 
yet the author looks beyond this, regarding 
that return rather as the ^establishment of 
the power of Antichrist, and the mighty 
battle which he foresees as the meeting of 
the powers of the world with spiritual 
powers. He beholds the armies of the kings 
of the earth gathered on the great battle-field 
of Hebrew history, — Armageddon, he calls 
it, — that little strip of land on which more 
battles have been fought than on any equal 
area in the world, the Plain of Esdraelon or 
Megiddo. 3 It lay just in the road between 
the empires of the north and east and that 
of Egypt, and across it the armies of centu- 
ries have marched and countermarched. It 
was the scene of the dramatic defeat of the 
Syrians under Sisera by the Hebrews under 

1 xvi. 12-15. 2 x iii- 11 • 

3 ftajBi in, Har-Megiddon, the Hill of Megiddo. 



72 The Drama of the Apocalypse 

Deborah, Barak, and Jael. 1 It was here that, 
a little later, occurred that great slaughter of 
the Midianites by Gideon's band, 2 which im- 
pressed itself on following ages as the type of 
a glorious victory for the Lord. 3 Here the 
young king Josiah, the one bright gleam in 
the falling fortunes of the Davidic dynasty, 
was slain, 4 a disaster which to the far-sighted 
seemed overwhelming. 5 Such, in fact, it 
proved. And on this spot where the house of 
David had received the blow which was its 
overthrow, here, the Seer foresaw, the Son 
of David would meet and conquer the 
kings of the nations and restore again the 
old Davidic kingdom in its true, spiritual 
form. 

As the poem goes on, the mind of the 
writer becomes more and more filled with 
the judgment of the great enemy of the 
Church, Rome. As he has spoken of Nero 
by a cryptographic name, the number 666, 
and of Jerusalem as " Sodom " and " Egypt," 6 

1 Judges iv. 2 Judges vii. 8. 

8 Ps. lxxxiii. ii, 12. 4 2 Chron. xxxv. 20-25. 

6 2 Chron. xxxv. 25 ; Lam. iv. 20. 6 xi. 8. 



The Drama 



73 



so his mystical tendencies, as well as the exi- 
gencies of the case, lead him to employ a cir- 
cumlocution in speaking of Rome. To him 
she is the ancient enemy of the Hebrew 
kingdom, Babylon ; and as he paints the pic- 
ture, rich in color and full of imaginative 
touches, of her destruction, his mind is filled 
with the images with which the old Hebrew 
prophets painted the destruction of Babylon 
and of Tyre. 1 If we may allow weight to 
slight indications of internal evidence, we 
may perhaps infer from the mention of Me- 
giddo as the most natural battle-field, that 
the author was a Palestinian Jew who had 
often wandered over this plain; and again, 
from this intense bitterness against Rome, 
that he had been one of those faithful in the 
imperial city who had been intended for the 
martyrdom of the arena or the shirt of pitch 
in the Neronian persecution, but who had 
escaped the fate which overtook so many of 
his companions. 2 It is a fine picture that he 

1 Isa. xiii ; Ezek. xxvi. 27. 

2 Cf. the tradition mentioned by Tertullian of St. John hav- 
ing escaped martyrdom in a caldron of boiling oil at Rome. 



74 The Drama of the Apocalypse 

draws, — the woman, Babylon, "arrayed in 
purple and scarlet colour, and decked with 
gold and precious stones and pearls, having 
a golden cup in her hand," sitting on her 
seven hills ; the city seen at a distance burn- 
ing ; while around there stand three groups 
watching. A group of the kings of the earth, 
"standing afar off for the fear of her tor- 
ment," bewail her and lament for her. 
Another group of "shipmasters and sailors 
and as many as trade by sea," wail and cast 
dust upon their heads. A third group of the 
merchants of the earth weep for her and 
mourn that no man will buy their merchan- 
dise any more, " the merchandise of gold and 
silver and precious stones, and of pearls and 
fine linen and purple and silk and scarlet, 
and all thyine wood, and all manner vessels 
of ivory, and all manner vessels of most pre- 
cious wood, and of brass and iron and marble 
and cinnamon and odours and ointments and 
frankincense and wine and oil and fine flour 
and wheat and beasts and sheep and horses 
and chariots and slaves and souls of men." 1 

1 xviii. 12, 13. 



The Drama 



75 



As the prophet sees all this he exclaims in a 
tone of sternly exultant joy, "Rejoice over her, 
thou Heaven, and ye saints, apostles, and 
prophets, for God hath avenged you on her ! " 
And the conclusion of the judgment of Baby- 
lon is uttered in a strain whose recurrent 
burden accentuates with its deep notes the 
hopelessness and finality of the doom : " And 
the voice of harpers and minstrels and flute- 
players and trumpeters shall be heard no 
more at all in thee ; 1 and no craftsman, of 
whatsoever craft, shall be found any more at 
all in thee ; and the sound of a mill-stone shall 
be heard no more at all in thee ; and the light 
of a lamp shall shine no more at all in thee ; 
and the voice of the bridegroom and of the 
bride shall be heard no more at all in thee ; for 
thy merchants were the princes of the earth ; 
for by thy sorceries were all nations de- 
ceived." 2 Then, as has so often in the course 
of the poem been the case, the scene shifts 
from earth to Heaven ; the spiritual events 

1 Nero's posing as a connoisseur in music no doubt gave 
rise to a host of imitators at court and among the fashionable 
in society. 2 xviii. 22, 23. 



76 



The Drama of the Apocalypse 



which are taking place are seen to be the 
same in both. The clouds roll asunder, 
and the Seer beholds the mighty heavenly 
chorus taking up the theme which has just 
been set forth on earth. The song begins 
and ends with the same deep chord, rising 
from the voices of the thousands that stretch 
off in ranks from the centre of Heaven. 
" ' Alleluiah ! ' " they sing. " 1 Salvation and 
glory and honour and power unto the Lord 
our God ! for true and righteous are His 
judgments. For He hath judged the great 
harlot which did corrupt the earth with her 
fornication, and hath avenged the blood of 
His servants at her hand.' And again they 
said, ' Alleluiah ! ' And her smoke rose up 
for ever and ever. And the Four and 
Twenty Elders and the Four Creatures fell 
down and worshipped God that sat on the 
throne, saying, ' Amen ! Alleluiah ! ' " 

Now comes the last Act of the Drama, the 
marriage of the Prince of Heaven, 

ActV S 

the final punishment of His ene- 
mies, and His assumption of His glory. 



The Drama 



77 



Heaven opens, and there appears a white 
horse and rider, armed for war. This is the 
Prince, who rides forth to His last short 
battle. His eyes glitter like fire ; His gar- 
ments are sprinkled with blood ; on His head 
are many crowns ; and on His dress and His 
girdle is emblazoned His heraldic device — 
" King of kings, and Lord of lords." All the 
armies of Heaven follow Him upon w r hite 
horses, while, on the other hand, the Beast 
and the kings of the earth collect all their 
forces to meet them. But the combat is 
short. The Beast and his lieutenant, the 
False Prophet, are quickly taken, and their 
armies are totally destroyed. We are in- 
clined to expect a fuller description of this 
battle than is given. But the writer's lack of 
art and form, and his interest in the wholly 
spiritual sides of his drama, impel him to 
hurry on to its conclusion. 

Then appears the authors scheme of 
eschatology. The Devil is seized, and, not 
destroyed, but bound and cast into a bottom- 
less pit, which is sealed for a thousand 



78 The Drama of the Apocalypse 

years. 1 But first comes a resurrection ; not 
of all the dead, not of all the righteous dead, 
but of those only who had suffered martyr- 
dom, or who had abstained from the worship 
of the Beast. These constitute a sort of 
aristocracy of the Kingdom of Heaven, and 
rise from their graves and reign on earth 
with Christ during the thousand years. The 
mind of the Seer was cast in the mould of 
the social system of his day, and if there was 
a king and a kingdom, the King must of 
course gather His nobles about Him. But it 
is to be noted that the basis of aristocracy is 
not birth nor official position, but purity and 
worth of character. The rest of the dead 
are not extinct ; they wait until the millen- 
nium is ended. At the end of the thousand 
years the Devil is released from the bottom- 
less pit, as if to ascertain whether his nature 
had been changed by his punishment, and to 
give even him one more chance. But he 

o 

1 The duration of the period is apparently computed from 
poetic expressions which lead to the conclusion that u the 
Day of the Lord is as a thousand years." Cf. Ps. xc. 4 ; 
Ixxxiv. 10 ; 2 Pet. iii. 8, 10. 



The Drama 



79 



immediately sets out upon his characteristic 
work of evil throughout the world. He col- 
lects a multitudinous army and besieges the 
saints in Jerusalem. But as the angel of 
the Lord had suddenly smitten an army 
besieging Jerusalem in ancient times, 1 
so now the fire of God falls and con- 
sumes this army, while the Devil is cast into 
a lake of fire and brimstone. Then comes 
the general resurrection and the Last Judg- 
ment. 

" And I saw a great white throne and Him 
that sat on it, from whose face the earth and 
the heaven fled away, and there was found 
no place for them. And I saw the dead, 
small and great, stand before God ; and the 
books were opened, and another book was 
opened, which is the Book of Life, and the 
dead were judged out of those things which 
were written in the books, according to 
their works. And the sea gave up the dead 
which were in it, and death and the grave 
delivered up the dead which were in them, 

1 2 Kings xix. 35. 



80 The Drama of the Apocalypse 

and they were judged, every man according 
to his works." 1 

The last scene of the drama is the renewal 
of all things, a renewal so complete that 
Heaven itself shares in it, and the prophet 
sees " a new Heaven," as well as a new earth. 
The new earth is, however, conceived on 
the same plan as the old. Jerusalem is the 
centre of it, seen now in all her glory as 
the bride of God. On each of its glittering 
foundations — " The first foundation was jas- 
per; the second, sapphire; the third, a chal- 
cedony; the fourth, an emerald; the fifth, 
sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, 
chrysolyte; the eighth, beryl; the ninth, a 
topaz ; the tenth, a chrysoprasus ; the 
eleventh, a jacinth; the twelfth, an ame- 
thyst" — on each glows the name of one 
of the twelve apostles ; while every one who 
enters the Holy City must come in by one of 
its twelve gates ; that is, must come as a mem- 
ber of one of the tribes of Israel. The mind 
of the Seer, poetic and creative as it is, does 

1 xx. 1 1, 14. 



The Drama 



81 



not distinguish between material elements 
and spiritual, because he feels the spiritual 
side of all ; and therefore, in his description, 
touches of brilliant color, which appeal to the 
eye, or which strike the imagination with a 
sense of costliness, are mingled with those 
which demand a purely spiritual apprecia- 
tion. But the material elements are all 
recognized as subordinate to the presence 
of God. This constitutes the centre and 
essence of Heaven; and, there being no 
longer any temple to contain it, the glory 
of it streams forth everywhere, extinguishing 
the feeble lights of earth, and the very sun 
itself, with its wondrous radiance. All the 
charms that can touch the eye with a sense 
of gorgeousness, or the weary heart with a 
sense of comfort, or the pure soul with a 
sense of the joys of moral righteousness, all 
are combined in the description of the com- 
pleted glorified Kingdom of God. For if 
that Kingdom, as the author had known it 
on earth, in its struggling, incomplete condi- 
tion, full of difficulty, toil, humiliation, and 



82 



The Drama of the Apocalypse 



pain, was yet so sweet and glorious, what 
must its native and complete glory be ! 

It is interesting to note that the Seer con- 
templates the Kingdom of Heaven as cen- 
tering in a city. It has been supposed 
that, as contrasted with the country, cities 
are places of exceptional wickedness; and 
this not so much because of the crimes that 
flourish in them as because there are more 
human beings collected there, more inter- 
ests, business, amusements, society ; in short, 
they are "the world." In the country, on 
the other hand, there is less of man and 
consequently more of God. Cowpers line, 

" God made the country, and man made the town," 
expressed a genuine theological belief of 
former times, a belief not yet altogether 
dead. But we may note in Hebrew litera- 
ture the early date and development of a 
larger thought. The abode of the Divine 
on earth was first pictured as in a garden. 1 
Later it became one spot in a community, 
the Holy of Holies w T ithin a temple. 2 In 

1 Gen. iii. 8. 2 Exod. xxvi. 33, 34. 



The Drama 



83 



Ezekiel's idea of the restored community all 
the area surrounding the temple, and not 
merely one small spot within it, had become 
holy. 1 In Jeremiah's prophetic outlook the 
holy character extends to the city and its 
suburbs. 2 And when we turn to the Seer of 
the New Testament, we find that it is a city 
only which fills his vision. In the new Heaven 
and new earth all else has become absorbed 
in a city filled with multitudinous life ; there 
is nothing but this. God is now limited to 
no one abode in it, since He permeates its 
every part His dwelling-place is henceforth 
in no curtained tent, aloof from the Congre- 
gation, in no temple built with hands. It 
is in humanity itself. 8 

" And I heard a great voice out of heaven, 
saying, * Behold the tabernacle of God is 
with men, and He will dwell among them, 
and they shall be His people, and God 
Himself shall be with them and be their 
God. And God shall wipe away all tears 

1 Ezek. xliii. 12. 2 Jer. xxxi. 38 f. 

3 Rev. xxi. 3, 22, 23. 



84 The Drama of the Apocalypse 

from their eyes, and there shall be no more 
death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither 
shall there be any more pain ; for the for- 
mer things are passed away.' . . . And the 
twelve gates were twelve pearls, every sev- 
eral gate was one pearl ; and the street of 
the city was fine gold, as it were transparent 
glass. And I saw no temple therein, for 
the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are 
the temple of it. And the city had no need 
of the sun neither of the moon to shine in 
it, for the glory of God did lighten it, and 
the Lamb is the light thereof. And the 
nations shall walk in the light of it, and 
the kings of the earth do bring their glory 
into it. And the °;ates of it shall not be 
shut at all by day (for there shall be no 
night there). And they shall bring the 
glory and honour of the nations into it. 
And there shall in no wise enter into it 
anything that defileth, neither whatsoever 
worketh abomination or maketh a lie ; but 
they which are written in the Lamb's Book 
of Life. . . . And there shall be no more 



The Drama 



85 



curse; but the throne of the Lamb shall 
be therein ; and His servants shall do Him 
service, and they shall see His face, and 
His name shall be on their foreheads. And 
there shall be no night there, and they need 
no candle, neither light of the sun, for the 
Lord God giveth them light, and they shall 
reign for ever and ever." 

Here what is properly the action of the 
drama ends. What follows is an Epilogue, 
for it refers to the whole of the 

Epilogue 

poem rather than to what imme- 
diately precedes. The angel who has been 
the guide of the Seer assures him that the 
time of the Lord's coming, when all these 
things shall be fulfilled, is close at hand; 
and the Epilogue closes with one of those 
chorales, of which there are so many in the 
poem, which show the author's sense of har- 
mony and power of orchestration : — 

" And the spirit and the Bride say, ( Come 1 ; 
And let him that heareth say, 6 Come ' ; 
And let him that is athirst come ; 
And whosoever will, let him take the water 
Of life freely." 



86 The Drama of the Apocalypse 

Finally the book closes with an Envoi or 
special address from the author to the reader, 
charging him to preserve the in- 

Envoi 

tegrity of the book, and warning 
him again that the coming of the Lord is 
close at hand. To this is added the usual 
apostolic benediction and " Amen." 

The steps of the drama, then, are as follows : 
Act I, the Opening of the Seals of Fate; 
Act II, the Blowing of the Trumpets of 
Woe; Act III, the Establishment of the 
Kingdom of Heaven, and its Results; Act 
IV, the Judgment of the Earth, and of 
Rome; Act V, the Marriage of the Prince 
of Heaven, and the Glory of the Kingdom. 



CHAPTER IV 



THE END OF ALL THINGS 

IT is interesting to study the difference 
between the eschatology of the Apoca- 
lypse and that of the Fourth Gospel and of 
St. Paul. The author of the Fourth Gospel 
holds that there will be a "last day," when 
there will be a resurrection of the just. 1 
Whether this is the same as the general 
resurrection of just and unjust, 2 which is 
followed by the Judgment, is not certain. 
But all the facts of eschatology have a far 
more spiritual meaning given to them in the 
Fourth Gospel than in the Apocalypse. The 
material garment is barely sufficient, and is 
apparently regarded as hardly necessary to 
clothe the spiritual meaning. Identification 
with the spirit of Christ constitutes the 
resurrection. 3 Eternal life consists in the 

1 St. John vi. 39, 40 ; xi. 24. 2 v. 28, 29. 3 xi. 25, 26. 

87 



88 The Drama of the Apocalypse 

knowledge of Christ and of God. The Judg- 
ment is not so much an event taking place 
at a certain time in the future, as a continual, 
self-fulfilling process. 1 The rewards and pun- 
ishments of that judgment are wholly devoid 
of even the appearance of arbitrariness, and 
are set forth as inherently necessary, because 
they are only a recognition of the existing 
condition of each man. 

This is, it is true, by no means inconsist- 
ent with the view of the writer of the Apoca- 
lypse, who sees God seated on a great white 
throne, condemning this man to the lake of 
fire and brimstone and giving to that one a 
place in an everlasting kingdom. They are 
not logically antagonistic; both statements 
may mean the same thing. But it requires 
a certain degree of spiritual and intellectual 
growth to see that they mean the same. 
And it may be questioned whether, in that 
age, the mind capable of feeling strongly the 
scenic side of the end of the world could 
have felt also the inevitableness and inherent 

1 iii. 1 8, 19; xii. 47, 48. 



The End of all Things 89 

nature of the causes which brought it about ; 
for the points of view of poetry and of phi- 
losophy were diverse then as now. 

In the eschatology of St. Paul no interval 
is fixed between the resurrection of the just 
and the general resurrection. 1 The duration 
of the reign of Christ is not given, and its 
character is exactly opposite to that men- 
tioned in the Apocalypse. In the latter it 
is a time of uninterrupted happiness and 
peace, for Satan is bound and powerless, and 
the saints reign undisturbed on the earth. 
With St. Paul it is a time of unceasing war- 
fare against hostile powers, and the duration 
of the period is limited by the time necessary 
for their complete subjugation. 2 The resur- 
rection first of the just only, at the sound of 
the last of the trumpets (cf. i Cor. xv. 52, 54 
with 1 Thess. iv. 16, 17), before all are raised, 
together with the victory that awaits them, 
would seem to imply an intervening reign of 
bliss; but no mention is made of a millen- 
nium, and the character given to the inter- 

1 1 Thess. iv. 15-18. 2 1 Cor. xv. 23-29. 



90 The Drama of the Apocalypse 

vening period is militant and opposed to that 
of the millennium. Among all the New 
Testament writers, the thousand years' reign 
of bliss, the chaining and loosing of Satan, 
the attack of the heathen powers on the 
camp of the saints, and the victory of the 
forces of Heaven in battle are peculiar to 
the writer of the Apocalypse. It is a char- 
acteristic sign of the social condition of the 
world at the time, that the instrument of 
power, the means by which changes are to be 
brought about, is not legislation, education, 
nor growth, but an army. 

Our outlook upon the future has so radi- 
cally changed since the seventh or eighth 
century b.c. that it is difficult for us to 
understand the point of view of many 
of the prophets and psalmists of Israel. 
That there should be religious believers in 
annihilation for all men, such as, later, was 
the author of the Book of Ecclesiastes, does 
not puzzle us, for we see these still about us. 
But a belief which should regard the region 
beyond death as a sort of huge chamber in 



The End of all Things 91 

which all men are penned, existent indeed, 
but with no joys, no great pains, no hope, no 
outlook ; a belief which should add to this, 
as time went on, the existence of a select few 
on earth with lives supernaturally prolonged, 
wielding a successful and beneficent govern- 
ment ; a belief which should feel no rectifica- 
tion necessary of the disproportion between 
the lot of the few and that of the many — 
such a belief is foreign to us. And yet the 
Jew of the seventh or eighth century b.c. 
could feel no such disproportion, because he 
had so limited a sense of the value of the 
individual. The family, the tribe, the nation, 
organized life in some of its forms, these 
wholly filled his vision, and the individual 
as such had as against these no rights which 
could claim consideration. The sins of the 
fathers were to be visited on the children 
to the third and fourth generation. When 
Achan was condemned for what in the judg- 
ment of the day was treason, not only was he 
put to death, but with him " his sons and his 
daughters and his oxen and his asses and 



92 The Drama of the Apocalypse 

his sheep and his tent and all that he had." 1 
It was not until the sixth century b.c. that a 
voice was raised against the traditional doc- 
trine by Jeremiah from amid the ruins of 
Jerusalem. He declared that the sour grapes 
which the fathers had eaten should no more 
set on edge the children's teeth. 2 At almost 
the same time Ezekiel, too, in the midst of the 
hostile prosperity of Babylon, reiterated the 
lesson that corporate guilt or innocence 
did not supersede individual responsibility. 
" The soul that sinneth, it shall die." 8 Despair 
at the apparent failure of God's promises in 
regard to the nation led to the conviction that 
they must be individually fulfilled. And from 
this time the idea of corporate existence had 
a complement, which was never afterwards 
lost, in the idea of the individual. But the 
habit of mind of the thinker of the ancient 
world was to emphasize corporate relations. 
To him individuals were valuable for the 
sake of institutions; to us institutions are 

1 Josh. vii. 24, 25. 2 Jer. xxxi. 29, 30. 

3 Ezek. xviii. 4 f. 



The End of all Things 93 

valuable for the sake of individuals. These 
are completely opposite points of view ; and 
this must constantly be borne in mind in 
considering the Canaanitish wars, the Impre- 
catory Psalms, and the arguments of St. Paul 
as to the rejection of Israel and the adoption 
of the Gentiles. The Jew of the ninth cen- 
tury b.c. was in this respect at one extremity of 
a pole of thought, and we in the twentieth cen- 
tury a.d. are at the other. It is interesting to 
trace the gradations between the two ; but it 
need only be noted here that in the Apoca- 
lypse there is a mingling of both elements. 
The Christian mind had come to demand a 
recognition in the future of the full personal- 
ity of each human being; consequently in 
the vision of the Seer there was a resurrec- 
tion of all the dead, small and great, standing 
before God. Sheol, the universal reception- 
chamber, opens its doors, and the sea gives 
back its dead. The latter were regarded as 
not having gone down to Sheol, another 
indication of the Hebrew ignorance and 
dread of the sea. 1 Each human being was 
1 Cf. p. 66. 



94 The Drama of the Apocalypse 

to be judged according to what was written 
in the book of his life, and the result was 
to be misery for the wicked and joy for the 
righteous. But though individualism is thus 
recognized, it is chiefly the institution that 
fills the writer's view — the Kingdom of 
Heaven. What he exults in is its trials, its 
triumphs, its power and glory ; and the 
individual who does not find his joy in these 
will not find it at all. 

The question, " What is the scheme of 
eschatology of the Apocalypse ? " is of course 
different from the question, " What is the 
scheme of eschatology which will be eventu- 
ally realized ? " While the author of the 
Revelation undoubtedly recognized that 
many of his utterances were symbolic, he 
undoubtedly also supposed that his scheme 
of the future was to be justified by the event. 
It needed less than a generation to show 
that in this he was mistaken, though the 
principles upon which his outlook into the 
future was based have been approved by 
each succeeding age as genuine and pro- 



The End of all Things 95 

phetic. It is along these lines of eternal 
justice — justice which allows no evil to go 
unpunished and no righteousness to be un- 
rewarded, which has regard to the organic 
welfare of the world and to the due of the 
individual, which judges not by chance nor 
whim, but by the characters engraved in the 
book of each man's life, which will not cease 
until the whole universe is brought into har- 
mony with God — it is along such lines, the 
mind of humanity is convinced, that the Di- 
vine plan must draw to its glorious end. 
The last book in the Bible is in this re- 
spect like the first. The Book of Genesis 
does not give the actual history of the 
world's beginning, but it reveals the spir- 
itual laws which gave the method to crea- 
tion. So the Book of the Revelation does 
not furnish a guide to the events attendant 
upon the end of the world, but it shows the 
principles which must inevitably determine 
the end. 

One difficulty which has been found with 
the eschatology of the Apocalypse is entirely 



96 The Drama of the Apocalypse 

unnecessary, even from the point of view 
which would regard its scheme as a final 
one. In the Apocalypse moral evil and its 
consequences are represented by physical 
pain. This, to many, has been a stumbling- 
block. They have not been able to recon- 
cile it to their ideas of right that the wicked 
should be " cast into the lake of fire and 
brimstone." But this is certainly no more 
difficult to interpret than the statement of 
the writer that in Heaven there are Four 
composite Creatures, having eyes before and 
behind and within. Physical pain is a most 
useful representative of moral evil, and one 
which those who have to instruct immature 
minds still find it wise at times to employ. 
But whatever method of interpretation may 
be applied to the Apocalypse, there is no 
warrant for interpreting the everlasting tor- 
ment of the wicked in one way and the Four 
Beasts and the sea of glass in another. If 
the former is actual, so must the latter be. 
If the latter are symbolical, so must be also 
the former. And their symbolic nature 



The End of all Things 97 

would imply not unreality, but reality. For 
every sign must have behind it something 
signified. If the lake of fire and brimstone 
and the sharp two-edged sword coming out 
of the mouth of the Lord are in any sense 
symbols, there must be an eternal reality 
behind them. 



CHAPTER V 

THE PERSON OF JESUS 

THE last chapter of the Book of the 
Revelation brings before us a ques- 
tion, hints of which have been visible 
throughout the Book. The angel who has 
been the guide of the Seer hitherto, as the 
latter in his wonder and awe falls down be- 
fore him, refuses his worship, professing to 
be one of the army of prophetic fellow-ser- 
vants like himself, and bids him worship 
God. He goes on, however, to identify 
himself with Jesus, announcing that the 
time of his coming is at hand when he will 
judge the world. " I, Jesus," he says, "have 
sent mine dyyeXov [that is, the Seer] to 
testify unto you [that is, the audience of 
the Christian world] these things in the 
Churches. I am the root and offspring of 

98 



The Person of Jesus 99 

David and the bright and morning star." 1 
This is not the first time that Jesus has 
been regarded as an angel. In xi. 3 it is 
an angel who speaks ; and yet the wit- 
nesses who are testifying to the Messiah's 
Kingdom he calls "my witnesses." Just 
after the Lamb has been mentioned, "an- 
other angel " is spoken of. 2 " The Son of 
Man," a title which elsewhere in the Book 
is applied to Jesus, 3 appears preceded by 
three angels and followed by three. 4 The 
frequency with which a band of angels con- 
sists of seven 5 w r ould suggest that Jesus is 
regarded here as one, the chief, among 
them, even if the one who follows Him 
were not called "another angel." 6 The 
same speaker who refuses the Seer's wor- 
ship, and bids him not to seal the prophetic 
Book, goes on to say, " Behold, I come 
quickly/' and speaks of himself as the final 
Judge. 7 

It is evident, then, that in these passages 

1 xxii. 16. 2 xiv. 1,4,6. 8 I. 13. 4 xiv. 14. 

5 iv. 5 ; viii. 2 ; xv. 1. 6 xiv. 15. 7 xxii. 12, 13. 



La. Q 1 V. 



100 The Drama of the Apocalypse 

Jesus is regarded as having the nature of 
an angel, as the highest, the first created 
being. He is " the faithful and true wit- 
ness, the beginning of the creation of 
God," 1 just as to St. Paul He is " the first- 
born of the whole creation." 2 He is "the 
Prince of the kings of the earth," 3 who is 
exalted to a heavenly throne as a reward 
for His victorious conflicts. 4 But it was 
characteristic of the deepest spiritual in- 
sight and reverence of the author's time 
that it was coming to regard its dearly 
loved Master as joined in some unique way 
to the one Almighty God, as sharing His 
nature and rank. And so there rises to 
the prophet's lips the phrase descriptive of 
God, " The first and the last," 5 which centu- 
ries earlier the great prophet of the Exile 
had used, and for which he, the Seer, had 
found as it recurred to his mind a fitting 
Greek symbol, " to v A\<£a kg! to ^fl." This 
symbol he uses both of Jesus 6 and of God 

Mii. 14. 2 Col. i. 15. 3 i. 5. 4 iii. 21. Cf. Phil. ii. 8, 9 ; 
Heb. ii. 9. 5 i. 17; xxii. 13. 6 xxii. 13. 



The Person of Jesus 



101 



Almighty, 1 feeling apparently no inconsist- 
ency in its double application. There are 
still other direct ascriptions to Jesus of the 
functions and attributes of God. And while 
we must beware of reading into them the 
metaphysical ideas which they connote to 
us, we cannot avoid seeing in them an asso- 
ciation of Jesus with God which was possible 
in case of no other being. Thus, for ex- 
ample, He is the final Judge; 2 the receiver 
of supreme worship together with God ; 3 the 
spirit of God ; 4 the word of God ; 5 the Son 
of God. 6 God and the Lamb occupy not 
two thrones, but one. 7 Throughout the 
poem the feelings with which Jesus is re- 
garded are those of the deepest devotion 
and adoration, such as are aroused only by 
an object believed to be Divine. 

The question then presents itself, What 
was the view of the author in regard to the 

1 i. 8, where cf. also Westcott and Hort's reading " Kvpios 
6 0eds." The phrase in i. n is rejected as corrupt. The 
identification in ii. 16 is doubtful. 

2 i. 1 8 ; xxii. 12. 3 v. 13 ; vii. 10 ; xxi. 22. 4 ii. 7 f. 

5 xix. 13. 6 ii. 18. 7 v. 6 ; xxii. 1, 3. 



102 The Drama of the Apocalypse 

mutual relations of God Almighty, of Jesus, 
and of the angel? The attempt has been 
made to avoid the inference that the angel 
in the last chapter identifies himself with 
Jesus by ascribing the different verses in it 
to different speakers. Thus vs. 6 is unques- 
tionably spoken by the angel. But vs. 7, it 
is said, is not by the angel, because the 
speaker refers to the coming of the Lord as 
his own coming. Again, vss. 10, 11 belong 
to the angel, but 12, 13 to Jesus. 14, 15 are 
doubtful, but 16 is again that of Jesus. It is 
undoubtedly the case that the ancient He- 
brew prophets in their impassioned dramatic 
utterances sometimes gave no indication of a 
change of speaker, putting their words now 
into the mouth of God, now speaking as 
from themselves, and now by the mouth of 
the people. The most usual instances of 
this are where the prophet alternates between 
words which he ascribes to God and those ut- 
tered in his own person. 1 In Isa. xxviii. 9-1 1, 
for example, in the midst of his own words, the 

1 Cf. Jer. xv. 8-19; xvii. 10-19. 



The Person of Jesus 



103 



prophet begins quoting the jeers of those 
who derided his preaching as commonplace 
and fit only for children. " Whom," they 
say, "shall he [the prophet] teach knowl- 
edge? and whom shall he make to under- 
stand a message ? Them that are weaned 
from the milk and drawn from the breasts." 
It is not until a following verse that he shows 
plainly who it is into whose mouth he puts 
these words. It is "this people," to whom 
God said, " This is the rest wherewith ye 
may cause the weary to rest, and this is the 
refreshing, yet they would not hear." This 
is the prophet's stage-direction, as it were. 
But in the last chapter of the Book of the 
Revelation there are no stage-directions. 
And when commentators declare, what is 
undoubtedly true, that the context must 
determine the speaker, and then assume that 
because vss. 7, 12, 13, 16 refer unquestion- 
ably to Jesus they do not therefore refer to 
the angel, it is unwarrantably assuming the 
very point in question. Certainly the ordi- 
nary reader unwarned would never imagine 



104 The Drama of the Apocalypse 



a change of speaker to have taken place 
between vss. 6, 7 and 10, 12. It could occur 
to no one not preoccupied with the need of 
dogmatic harmonizing. This is precisely the 
attitude of mind most alien to that of the 
writer of the Apocalypse. From him, as 
already said, logical consistency in ideas and 
images and exclusiveness among them can- 
not be demanded. As he identifies Nero 
with one of the heads of the Beast, and then 
immediately, unconsciously, and with no sign 
of transition identifies him with the Beast as 
a w T hole, so here the highest angel and the 
beginning of the creation of God, the first- 
born of every creature and the Prince of 
Heaven, the King of the new Kingdom and 
the eternal Judge, pass naturally and uncon- 
sciously into one another. If this seems 
strange, it can be so only to one who comes 
expecting to find everywhere the footprints 
of a carefully worked-out theological system, 
such as were those of the West. Such a 
system is not natural to the Oriental mind, 
and w 7 as foreign to the earliest days of Chris- 



The Person of Jesus 105 

tianity. Valuable as such systems are, they 
are an adult growth, and in the history of 
Christianity it required several centuries and 
the influence of the West to produce them. 
Vision comes more naturally in the East 
than thought; and in a vision the images 
blend and pass into one another without 
condemning thereby the vision's genuineness 
or value. 

The point of view of the Seer, then, is 
continually changing. He conceives of 
Jesus now as the highest of the creatures, 
now as the eternal beginning and end of all 
things. Our difficulty in comprehending 
this arises not only from the fact that to us 
each of these is a definite and separate 
conception, while to him such definiteness 
and separation did not exist; but also from 
the single idea conveyed to us by the word 
" angel " as compared with the double idea 
contained in the Greek ayyeXos. To the 
Greek this word meant a messenger of any 
kind, as well as one of those beings whom 
we call distinctively angels. To speak of 



106 The Drama of the Apocalypse 

Jesus as a divine dyyeXos, then, would not 
be so foreign to the point of view which 
regarded Him as Son of God as to speak 
of Him as an " angel." But here again the 
Oriental mind, averse to minute distinctions 
of thought, would probably have found no 
difficulty where the Western mind might 
readily find one. 

It is worthy of note that while the angel, 
Jesus, and God are at times regarded as 
separate beings and at times identified, the 
bond between them which allows their iden- 
tification is a transcendent, spiritual one, 
an internal unity of character and function. 
This bond is similar to that which in the 
Fourth Gospel is asserted to exist among 
Jesus, His disciples, the Holy Spirit, and 
God. The spirit of Jesus is not merely to 
come into the world, but is to dwell with 
His disciples and to be in them ; and the 
union among them, Himself, and God is in- 
herent in the nature of spiritual life. " That 
they all may be one," He prays, "as Thou, 
Father, art in me and I in Thee, that they 



The Person of Jesus 107 

also may be one in us." 1 It is this recogni- 
tion of the true nature of the bond between 
Christ and His own that is the special 
characteristic of the Fourth Gospel. The 
author has apprehended, as has hardly any 
one else, hardly even St. Paul, the fact that 
the believer is joined to Christ through be- 
ing filled with a spirit like His ; or rather, 
since that would imply many distinct spirits 
of one and the same kind, and since spirit 
is in reality not individual but universal, it 
is through being filled with Christ's spirit, 
through sharing with Him in a common 
spiritual life. To the other Evangelists the 
relations between Christ and those who are 
His are largely material and external. He 
is to take them to His Heavenly Kingdom ; 
they are to possess the earth. His apostles 
shall sit on twelve thrones and judge the 
twelve tribes of Israel. But while to the 
Fourth Evangelist, as to the others, there 
was no sharp line of division between mate- 
rial and spiritual, form and essence, with 

1 St. John xvii. 21. 



108 The Drama of the Apocalypse 

him the spiritual had a higher range and 
wider inclusiveness. It is this that gives 
him his penetrating view into the essential 
nature of the resurrection and eternal life. 1 
It is this that reveals to him the secret of 
Christ's marvellous power in His profound 
God-consciousness. 2 And it is this depth 
and intensity of spiritual gaze rather than 
the dogmatic character of its discourses, 
which have made the Fourth Gospel dear 
to the Christian heart. 

The difference in mode of treatment of 
the same subjects in the Apocalypse and 
the Fourth Gospel is suggestive as showing 
points of view not so much opposed as 
developed more or less fully. The Apoca- 
lypse is the earlier book, both historically 
and logically, and was a necessary step 
toward the capacity of spiritual apprehen- 
sion which the Fourth Gospel shows. " In 
the Apocalypse," says Dr. Westcott, "the 
thought is of an outward coming for the 
open judgment of men ; in the Gospel, of a 

1 St. John xi. 25, 26 ; xvii. 3. 2 iv. 34 ; x. 28-31. 



The Person of Jesus 109 

judgment which is spiritual and self-execut- 
ing. In the Apocalypse the scene of the 
consummation is a renovated world ; in the 
Gospel, the Father's House. In the former 
the victory and the transformation are 
from without, by might, and the 'future' 
is painted in historic imagery ; in the latter, 
the victory and the transformation are from 
within, by a spiritual influence, and the 
'future' is present and eternal. In a word, 
the study of the Synoptists, of the Apoca- 
lypse, and of the Gospel of St. John in suc- 
cession, enables us to see under what human 
conditions the full majesty of Christ was 
perceived and declared, not all at once, but 
step by step, and by the help of the old 
prophetic teaching." 

That the author of the Apocalypse iden- 
tified Jesus with the highest angel may be 
a fact of much significance or of little. Of 
much, if created limitation was the side 
accented in the author's mind, if a distinc- 
tively angelic character and functions are 
assigned to Him; of little, if this w r as merely 



110 The Drama of the Apocalypse 

one point of view among many, and if there 
are ascribed to Him the mediatorial, redemp- 
tive, and essentially Divine characteristics 
which the Christian Church through the 
centuries has insisted must form part of 
the highest and truest view of Jesus. If we 
remember that Jesus is apparently identified 
with the angel, we must also remember that 
He is as apparently identified with the 
Supreme God. If we then insist upon logi- 
cal exactitude of thought, the Apocalypse 
will have nothing to say to us. The de- 
mand, " He must be regarded as either 
the one or the other. Which is it ? " the 
inspired Seer would probably have been 
unable to understand. 

Other instances of this characteristic of 
thought and style, which leads the author 
to interchange predicates and regard the 
same objects in various lights, are the fol- 
lowing : The final Judge is at cne time 
declared to be God and at another Christ. 1 
It is said there will be a complete renovation 

x Cf. xx. 12 ; xxi. 4 with xxii. 12; vi. 16, 17. 



The Person of Jesus 111 

of both Heaven and earth. 1 And yet various 
classes of sinners who remain from the old 
condition of things are represented as hav- 
ing their permanent abode outside the heav- 
enly city; 2 and this though they have already 
been consigned to the lake of fire and brim- 
stone. 3 The relations of Jew and Gentile 
are also regarded with inconsistency. On 
the one hand, they form one community 
without distinction, and both alike are kings 
and priests unto God. 4 Sonship to God is 
conditioned on moral character, not on an- 
cestry. 5 The water of life is for whosoever 
will. 6 And yet, on the other hand, between 
Jew and Gentile there is an indelible dis- 
tinction. The firstfruits of the Messiah's 
Kingdom are the nation of Israel in its 
ideal estate, 7 while the saved Gentiles are 
set in contrast with them, 8 and are even 
not mentioned as belonging to the re- 
deemed. 9 The Kingdom of Christ is built 
on a distinctively Jewish model. It is not 

1 xxi. i. 2 xxii. 15. 3 xxi, 8. 4 i. 6 ; v. 10. 

5 xxi. 7. 6 xxii. 17. 7 vii. 4-9. 8 vii. 9. 
9 xiv. 1, 3. 



112 The Drama of the Apocalypse 

only that it is regarded as Jerusalem made 
new, but every one who enters must come 
in through one of twelve gates, each of which 
represents one of the tribes of Israel. 1 The 
fruit of the tree of life is designed for Israel- 
ites, for there are twelve kinds of it, while 
for the Gentiles there are only its leaves for 
healing purposes. 2 Such inconsistencies 
would have seemed to the author and to 
every Oriental mind to involve no breach 
of thought nor detraction from the worth 
of the literary work in which they occurred. 



1 xxi. 12. 



2 xxii. 2. 



CHAPTER VI 



THE LITERARY VALUE OF THE APOCALYPSE 

A POCALYPSES were a favorite form 



il of literature in times when the outlook 
was dark and the glow of original prophetic 
genius was dim. Their object was to en- 
courage and comfort by holding out the 
hope of speedy deliverance. Much as the 
later Jewish and early Christian literature 
was in this form, and the masterpieces of for- 
mer ages influenced profoundly the author 
of the Book of the Revelation. For example, 
the details of the new Jerusalem, the measur- 
ing of the city, the river of life, the ever- 
fruitful tree, are taken from Ezekiel, though 
their roots are earlier still, and in the New 
Testament more of spiritual significance is 
infused into them. The beasts with many 
heads and horns, the measuring of time by 
i 113 




114 The Drama of the Apocalypse 

the prophetic week, the name " Son of 
Man," and the appearance of the Ancient of 
Days are found also in Daniel. Among 
other apocalypses which formed part of the 
later Jewish literature are the following : 
Ethiopic Enoch, dating 200-95 B - c -*> the 
Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, sec- 
ond and first centuries b.c. ; the Psalms of 
Solomon, 70-40 B.C.; the Fourth Book of 
Ezra, perhaps 97 a.d. ; the Book of Jubi- 
lees, or the Little Genesis, the first quarter 
of the first century a.d.; the Assumption 
of Moses, the same date ; the Apocalypse of 
Baruch, the latter half of the first centurv. 
Among Christian apocalypses of this period 
are the Apocalypse of Esdras, belonging 
to the second or third century a.d. ; the 
Ascension and Vision of Isaiah, the same 
date ; the Apocalypse of Paul, late in the 
fourth century; the Apocalypse of John, 
not earlier than the fifth century. 

As the years went by and the Lord's King- 
dom did not appear upon earth ; as devout 
believers had to meet not only the jeers of 



The Literary Value of the Apocalypse 1 1 5 

their opponents, but the harrowing doubt 
of their own minds, — "Where is the prom- 
ise of His coming ? For since the fathers 
fell asleep, all things continue as they were 
from the beginning of the creation," — as 
the world went on its course, giving no sign 
of any fulfilment of their hopes ; men, on the 
one hand, settled down into the conviction 
that the Kingdom of Christ was represented 
in the Church, — a conviction established on 
a firm basis by Augustine in his De Civitate 
Dei, — and, on the other hand, they endeav- 
ored to galvanize into new life the primi- 
tive faith, in spite of apparent contradiction. 
This attempt w r as begun by Montanism in 
the second century, and continued in various 
forms of Millenarianism to our own day. 
Montanism was the first of the many Chris- 
tian attempts to reform the world by the 
endeavor to restore conditions which were 
assumed to be primitive. Like so many 
other similar attempts, it was the expression 
of a noble protest, a protest against the ten- 
dency of the Church to strike a bargain with 



116 The Drama of the Apocalypse 

the world and arrange herself comfortably in 
it. As the hold of the Church, however, be- 
came firmly established, expectation of an 
upheaval, even of an upheaval with Christ at 
its head, died away. For the expectation of 
Millenarianism was not of a kingdom which 
should be the consummation of a process of 
evolution and development of the Church, 
but a special implanting of the glory of the 
hereafter into the imperfections of this world. 
When the Protestant Reformation thrilled 
men with vague and infinite hopes, it seemed 
as if all things were about to be made new, 
and the millennial kingdom of Christ would 
immediately appear. As, however, in the 
first half of the Book of the Revelation, the 
denotement of the drama is continually post- 
poned, so in the history of the world, the 
ultimate moment, always on the point of 
happening, never arrives ; the bright vision 
recedes, and life drops back into its old 
humdrum ways. Yet still those who are 
tied to literalism in exegesis, those whose 
world is so bad that they cannot endure it 



The Literary Value of the Apocalypse 117 

without hope of a speedy deliverance, those 
who see no reason why God should not do 
anything they wish, these have been ever in- 
clined to fix the place and the hour when 
Christ would descend through the clouds, and 
by a mighty convulsion transform the world 
into His Kingdom. The Irvingites in Eng- 
land in 1 83 1, the Millerites in New England 
in 1843, the Mormons in their exodus to 
Utah in 1847, are instances of religious move- 
ments in the last century in which the ex- 
pectation of an earthly kingdom played a 
prominent part. 

It would seem as if the strenuous exertions 
which the author of the Apocalypse made to 
impress upon his readers that the end of all 
things was only a few years distant, might 
have preserved his book from the exegetical 
fate which has befallen it. For there has 
never perhaps been a work which has re- 
ceived more divergent interpretations and 
more fantastic ones. During the first three 
centuries the general meaning of the Book 
was preserved — the knowledge that it took 



118 The Drama of the Apocalypse 

its rise in the conditions of the middle of the 
first century, that it reflected those condi- 
tions, and that it was designed by its author 
to apply to the present and the near future. 
But when the Church came to be united with 
the Empire, the ecclesiastical authorities of 
the time could not recognize the inspiration 
and canonicity of a book whose main burden 
was hatred of Rome and prediction of her 
downfall. They consequently tried to de- 
stroy its prestige by declaring it apocry- 
phal. But it had made itself too strong a 
place in the mind and affections of the 
Christian world to be uprooted. Attempts 
were then made, by fanciful exegesis, to 
explain away allusions which were objection- 
able. The condition of the science of Bibli- 
cal interpretation made such attempts natural 
and easy; for the aim of exegesis then was 
not so much to discover what meaning the 
text actually had, as what meaning it might 
with edification have. Toward the twelfth 
century, when the traditions of the early 
Fathers had less weight, all historical basis 



The Literary Value of the Apocalypse 



119 



for the Book was forgotten, and it was di- 
rectly transferred to the province of poetic 
fancy. That was declared to belong to the 
remote future which its author had distinctly 
asserted to refer to a period but a few years 
distant from the time at which he wrote. The 
custom of identifying the spiritual enemies 
denounced in the Book with existing heretics 
and schismatics began in the thirteenth cen- 
tury. Pope Innocent III affirmed the Sara- 
cens to be the true Antichrist, Mohammed 
the False Prophet, and 666 years the dura- 
tion of his power. After the Reformation 
the Pope himself became Antichrist, or, by 
a different interpretation, the Beast was the 
line of Popes. On the other hand, the star 
which fell from Heaven has within a century 
been identified w r ith Luther, who renounced 
his faith and thus fell. It has also been 
confidently announced that the Beast was 
Napoleon Bonaparte. 

All such attempts leave the Book what 
they found it, — a riddle composed of many 
bits, each bit to be fitted into place here and 



120 The Drama of the Apocalypse 

there along the centuries by ingenious guess- 
ing. For this, as well as every other book, 
must be found a riddle by any exegesis 
which does not endeavor to ascertain, first 
what the work in question meant to the 
author and his time, and secondly, what 
power of instruction and encouragement it 
has for men of all time. Its function in giv- 
ing information as to past events or those 
yet to come will always be subordinate. The 
second of these considerations will determine 
worth, determine whether or not a book has 
"inspiration," or, more properly, the power 
of inspiring. 

Such inspiration in the Apocalypse was 
recognized not only by early ages, but has 
been recognized by all ages succeeding. 
Not that power of inspiring which is felt in 
the loftier Psalms and the Restoration Epic 
of the Old Testament, or the Gospels and 
Pauline Epistles of the New, for the spiritual 
standpoint of the Apocalypse is distinctly 
lower than these. But its value lies in the 
certainty of the authors conviction of the 



The Literary Value of the Apocalypse 121 

ultimate triumph of righteousness, the stern- _ 
ness of his hatred of evil-doers, the gorgeous- 
ness of his imagination, his sense of harmony, 
the harmony of mighty voices filled with 
pure and passionate feeling, and the more 
subtle harmonies which can be heard only 
with the ear of the soul. What it has done, 
it can do ; and it has stirred men's souls and 
raised them to the throne of God. It has 
made them feel disaster, failure, persecution, 
to be matters of little account. It has sent 
them singing to their deaths with a vivid 
realization of glory before them. It has com- 
forted those who were hard pressed with the 
thought that it was but for a little w r hile. It 
has expressed spiritual realities in concrete [ 
terms, so that the child and the ignorant 
man could grasp them. And it has tinged 
the thought of the world, so that not only 
the language of devotion, but that of common 
life has become colored by it. It is the last 
great prophecy of the spirit of Israel, the 
first poem of Christianity. 



CHAPTER VII 



THE REVELATION OF ST. JOHN THE DIVINE 
(Revised Version, 1881) 



A which God gave him to shew unto 
his servants, even the things which 
must shortly come to pass : and he sent 
and signified it by his angel unto his 

2 servant John; who bare witness of 
the word of God, and of the testimony 
of Jesus Christ, even of all things that 

3 he saw. Blessed is he that readeth, 
and they that hear the words of the 
prophecy, and keep the things which 
are written therein: for the time is at 
hand. 

4 John to the seven churches which are 
in Asia: Grace to you and peace, from 
him which is and which was and which 




Revelation of Jesus Christ, 



122 



L 10 The Revelation 123 

is to come ; and from the seven Spirits 

5 which are before his throne ; and from 
Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, 
the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler 
of the kings of the earth. Unto him 
that loveth us, and loosed us from our 

6 sins by his blood ; and he made us to 
be a kingdom, to be priests unto his 
God and Father ; to him be the glory and 
the dominion for ever and ever. Amen. 

7 Behold, he cometh with the clouds ; and 
every eye shall see him, and they which 
pierced him ; and all the tribes of the 
earth shall mourn over him. Even so, 
Amen. 

8 I am the Alpha and the Omega, saith 
the Lord God, which is and which was 
and which is to come, the Almighty. 

9 I John, your brother and partaker with 
you in the tribulation and kingdom and 
patience which were in Jesus, was in the 
isle that is called Patmos, for the word 

10 of God and the testimony of Jesus. I 
was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and 



124 The Drama of the Apocalypse 1. 10 

I heard behind me a great voice, as of a 

11 trumpet saying, What thou seest, write 
in a book, and send it to the seven 
churches ; unto Ephesus, and unto 
Smyrna, and unto Pergamum, and unto 
Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Phil- 

12 adelphia, and unto Laodicea. And I 
turned to see the voice which spake with 
me. And having turned I saw seven 

13 golden candlesticks; and in the midst 
of the candlesticks one like unto a son 
of man, clothed with a garment down 
to the foot, and girt about at the breasts 

14 with a golden girdle. And his head 
and his hair were w 7 hite as white wool, 
white as snow; and his eyes were as 

15 a flame of fire; and his feet like unto 
burnished brass, as if it had been refined 
in a furnace ; and his voice as the voice 

16 of many waters. And he had in his 
right hand seven stars: and out of his 
mouth proceeded a sharp two-edged 
sword : and his countenance was as the 

1 7 sun shineth in his strength. And when 



The Revelation 



125 



I saw him, I fell at his feet as one dead. 
And he laid his right hand upon me, 

8 saying, Fear not ; I am the first and the 
last, and the Living one ; and I was 
dead, and behold, I am alive for ever- 
more, and I have the keys of death and 

9 of Hades. Write therefore the things 
which thou sawest, and the things which 
are, and the things which shall come to 

o pass hereafter ; the mystery of the seven 
stars which thou sawest in my right hand, 
and the seven golden candlesticks. The 
seven stars are the angels of the seven 
churches : and the seven candlesticks are 
seven churches. 

2 To the angel of the church in Ephesus 
write ; 

These things saith he that holdeth the 
seven stars in his right hand, he that 
walketh in the midst of the seven golden 
2 candlesticks : I know thy works, and thy 
toil and patience, and that thou canst not 
bear evil men, and didst try them which 
call themselves apostles, and they are not, 



126 The Drama of the Apocalypse II. 3 

3 and didst find them false ; and thou hast 
patience and didst bear for my name's 

4 sake, and hast not grown weary. But I 
have this against thee, that thou didst 

5 leave thy first love. Remember there- 
fore from whence thou art fallen, and re- 
pent, and do the first works; or else I 
come to thee, and will move thy candle- 
stick out of its place, except thou repent. 

6 But this thou hast, that thou hatest the 
works of the Nicolaitans, which I also 

7 hate. He that hath an ear, let him hear 
what the Spirit saith to the churches. 
To him that overcometh, to him will I 
give to eat of the tree of life, which is 
in the Paradise of God. 

8 And to the angel of the church in 
Smyrna write ; 

These things saith the first and the last, 

9 which was dead, and lived again : I know 
thy tribulation, and thy poverty (but thou 
art rich), and the blasphemy of them 
w r hich say they are Jews, and they are 

10 not, but are a synagogue of Satan. Fear 



The Revelation 



127 



not the things which thou art about to 
suffer: behold, the devil is about to cast 
some of you into prison, that ye may be 
tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten 
days. Be thou faithful unto death, and I 

1 will give thee the crown of life. He that 
hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit 
saith to the churches. He that overcom- 
eth shall not be hurt of the second death. 

2 And to the angel of the church in Per- 
gamum write ; 

These things saith he that hath the 

3 sharp two-edged sword : I know where 
thou dwellest, even where Satan's throne 
is: and thou holdest fast my name, and 
didst not deny my faith, even in the days 
of Antipas my witness, my faithful one, 
who was killed among you, where Satan 

4 dwelleth. But I have a few things against 
thee, because thou hast there some that 
hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught 
Balak to cast a stumbling-block before the 
children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed 

5 to idols, and to commit fornication. So 



128 The Drama of the Apocalypse n. 15 

hast thou also some that hold the teach- 
ing of the Nicolaitans in like manner. 

16 Repent therefore; or else I come to thee 
quickly, and I will make war against 

1 7 them with the sw r ord of my mouth. He 
that hath an ear, let him hear what the 
Spirit saith to the churches. To him 
that overcometh, to him will I give of 
the hidden manna, and I will give him a 
white stone, and upon the stone a new 
name written, which no one knoweth 
but he that receiveth it. 

18 And to the angel of the church in Thya- 
tira write ; 

These things saith the Son of God, who 
hath his eyes like a flame of fire, and his 

19 feet are like unto burnished brass: I 
know thy works, and thy love and faith 
and ministry and patience, and that thy 

20 last works are more than the first. But 
I have this against thee, that thou suf- 
ferest the woman Jezebel, which calleth 
herself a prophetess; and she teacheth 
and seduceth my servants to commit for- 



II. 28 



The Revelation 



129 



nication, and to eat things sacrificed to 

21 idols. And I gave her time that she 
should repent; and she willeth not to 

22 repent of her fornication. Behold, I do 
cast her into a bed, and them that com- 
mit adultery with her into great tribula- 
tion, except they repent of her works. 

23 And I will kill her children with death; 
and all the churches shall know that I 
am he which searcheth the reins and 
hearts : and I will give unto each one of 

24 you according to your works. But to you 
I say, to the rest that are in Thyatira, as 
many as have not this teaching, which 
know not the deep things of Satan, as 
they say ; I cast upon you none other 

25 burden. Howbeit that which ye have, 

26 hold fast till I come. And he that over- 
cometh, and he that keepeth my works 
unto the end, to him will I give authority 

27 over the nations: and he shall rule them 
with a rod of iron, as the vessels of the 
potter are broken to shivers; as I also 

28 have received of my Father: and I will 

K 



130 The Drama of the Apocalypse II. 29 

29 give him the morning star. He that hath 
an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith 
to the churches. 
3 And to the angel of the church in Sar- 
dis write ; 

These things saith he that hath the 
seven Spirits of God, and the seven 
stars : I know thy works, that thou hast 
a name that thou livest, and thou art 

2 dead. Be thou watchful, and stablish 
the things that remain, which were ready 
to die : for I have found no works of 

3 thine fulfilled before my God. Remem- 
ber therefore how thou hast received and 
didst hear; and keep it, and repent. If 
therefore thou shalt not watch, I will 
come as a thief, and thou shalt not know 

4 what hour I will come upon thee. But 
thou hast a few names in Sardis which 
did not defile their garments: and they 
shall walk with me in white ; for they are 

5 worthy. He that overcometh shall thus 
be arrayed in white garments ; and I will 
in no wise blot his name out of the book 



III. 10 



The Revelation 



131 



of life, and I will confess his name before 

6 my Father, and before his angels. He 
that hath an ear, let him hear what the 
Spirit saith to the churches. 

7 And to the angel of the church in Phila- 
delphia write ; 

These things saith he that is holy, he 
that is true, he that hath the key of 
David, he that openeth, and none shall 
shut, and that shutteth, and none open- 

8 eth: I know thy works (behold, I have 
set before thee a door opened, which none 
can shut), that thou hast a little power, 
and didst keep my word, and didst not 

9 deny my name. Behold, I give of the 
synagogue of Satan, of them which say 
they are Jews, and they are not, but do 
lie ; behold, I will make them to come 
and worship before thy feet, and to know 

10 that I have loved thee. Because thou 
didst keep the word of my patience, I 
also will keep thee from the hour of trial, 
that hour which is to come upon the 
whole world, to try them that dwell upon 



132 The Drama of the Apocalypse Hi. u 

1 1 the earth. I come quickly : hold fast 
that which thou hast, that no one take thy 

12 crown. He that overcometh, I will make 
him a pillar in the temple of my God, 
and he shall go out thence no more : and 
I will write upon him the name of my 
God, and the name of the city of my God, 
the new Jerusalem, which cometh down 
out of heaven from my God, and mine 

1 3 own new name. He that hath an ear, let 
him hear what the Spirit saith to the 
churches. 

14 And to the angel of the church in 
Laodicea write ; 

These things saith the Amen, the faith- 
ful and true witness, the beginning of the 

15 creation of God: I know thy w r orks, that 
thou art neither cold nor hot: I would 

16 thou wert cold or hot. So because thou 
art lukew r arm, and neither hot nor cold, I 

17 will spew thee out of my mouth. Because 
thou sayest, I am rich, and have gotten 
riches, and have need of nothing; and 
knowest not that thou art the wretched 



IV. i 



The Revelation 



133 



one and miserable and poor and blind 

18 and naked: I counsel thee to buy of me 
gold refined by fire, that thou mayest be- 
come rich ; and white garments, that thou 
mayest clothe thyself, and that the shame 
of thy nakedness be not made manifest ; 
and eyesalve to anoint thine eyes, that 

19 thou mayest see. As many as I love, I 
reprove and chasten : be zealous therefore, 

20 and repent. Behold, I stand at the door 
and knock : if any man hear my voice and 
open the door, I will come in to him, and 

21 will sup with him, and he with me. He 
that overcometh, I will give to him to sit 
down with me in my throne, as I also 
overcame, and sat down with my Father 

22 in his throne. He that hath an ear, let 
him hear what the Spirit saith to the 
churches. 

4 After these things I saw, and behold, 
a door opened in heaven, and the first 
voice which I heard, a voice as of a trum- 
pet speaking with me, one saying, Come 
up hither, and I will shew thee the things 



134 The Drama of the Apocalypse iv. i 

which must come to pass hereafter. 

2 Straightway I was in the Spirit : and 
behold, there was a throne set in heaven, 

3 and one sitting upon the throne ; and he 
that sat was to look upon like a jasper 
stone and a sardius : and there was a 
rainbow round about the throne, like an 

4 emerald to look upon. And round about 
the throne were four and tw r enty thrones : 
and upon the thrones I saw four and 
twenty elders sitting, arrayed in white 
garments ; and on their heads crowns of 

5 gold. And out of the throne proceed 
lightnings and voices and thunders. And 
there were seven lamps of fire burning 
before the throne, which are the seven 

6 Spirits of God ; and before the throne, as 
it were a glassy sea like unto crystal; and 
in the midst of the throne, and round 
about the throne, four living creatures 

7 full of eyes before and behind. And the 
first creature was like a lion, and the sec- 
ond creature like a calf, and the third 
creature had a face as of a man, and the 



The Revelation 



135 



fourth creature was like a flying eagle. 

8 And the four living creatures, having 
each one of them six wings, are full of 
eyes round about and within : and they 
have no rest day and night, saying, Holy, 
holy, holy, is the Lord God, the Almighty, 
which was and which is and which is 

9 to come. And when the living creatures 
shall give glory and honour and thanks 
to him that sitteth on the throne, to him 

10 that liveth for ever and ever, the four 
and twenty elders shall fall down before 
him that sitteth on the throne, and shall 
worship him that liveth for ever and 
ever, and shall cast their crowns before 

11 the throne, saying, Worthy art thou, 
our Lord and our God, to receive the 
glory and the honour and the power: 
for thou didst create all things, and be- 
cause of thy will they were, and were 
created. 

5 And I saw in the right hand of him that 
sat on the throne a book written within 
and on the back, close sealed with seven 



136 The Drama of the Apocalypse v. 2 

2 seals. And I saw a strong angel pro- 
claiming with a great voice, Who is 
worthy to open the book, and to loose 

3 the seals thereof? And no one in the 
heaven, or on the earth, or under the 
earth, was able to open the book, or to 

4 look thereon. And I wept much, because 
no one was found worthy to open the 

5 book, or to look thereon : and one of the 
elders saith unto me, Weep not : behold, 
the Lion that is of the tribe of Judah, the 
Root of David, hath overcome, to open 
the book and the seven seals thereof. 

6 And I saw in the midst of the throne and 
of the four living creatures, and in the 
midst of the elders, a Lamb standing, as 
though it had been slain, having seven 
horns, and seven eyes, which are the seven 

7 Spirits of God, sent forth into all the 
earth. And he came, and he taketh it out 

8 of the right hand of him that sat on the 
throne. And when he had taken the book, 
the four living creatures and the four and 
twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, 



The Revelation 



137 



having each one a harp, and golden bowls 
full of incense, which are the prayers of the 
9 saints. And they sing a new song, say- 
ing, Worthy art thou to take the book, 
and to open the seals thereof : for thou 
wast slain, and didst purchase unto God 
with thy blood men of every tribe, and 

10 tongue, and people, and nation, and mad= 
est them to be unto our God a kingdom 
and priests; and they reign upon the 

1 1 earth. And I saw, and I heard a voice of 
many angels round about the throne and 
the living creatures and the elders ; and 
the number of them was ten thousand 
times ten thousand, and thousands of 

1 2 thousands ; saying with a great voice, 
Worthy is the Lamb that hath been slain 
to receive the power, and riches, and wis- 
dom, and might, and honour, and glory, 

13 and blessing. And every created thing 
which is in the heaven, and on the earth, 
and under the earth, and on the sea, and all 
things that are in them, heard I saying, 
Unto him that sitteth on the throne, and 



138 The Drama of the Apocalypse v. 13 

unto the Lamb, be the blessing, and the 
honour, and the glory, and the dominion, 
14 for ever and ever. And the four living 
creatures said, Amen. And the elders 
fell down and worshipped. 
6 And I saw when the Lamb opened one 
of the seven seals, and I heard one of the 
four living creatures saying as with a 

2 voice of thunder, Come. And I saw, and 
behold, a white horse, and he that sat 
thereon had a bow ; and there was given 
unto him a crown: and he came forth 
conquering, and to conquer, 

3 And when he opened the second seal, 
I heard the second living creature saying, 

4 Come. And another horse came forth, 
a red horse : and to him that sat thereon 
it was given to take peace from the earth, 
and that they should slay one another: 
and there was given unto him a great 
sword. 

5 And when he opened the third seal, I 
heard the third living creature saying, 
Come. And I saw, and behold, a black 



VI. io 



The Revelation 



139 



horse; and he that sat thereon had a 

6 balance in his hand. And I heard as 
it were a voice in the midst of the four 
living creatures, saying, A measure of 
wheat for a penny, and three measures 
of barley for a penny; and the oil and 
the wine hurt thou not. 

7 And when he opened the fourth seal, I 
heard the voice of the fourth living crea- 

8 ture saying, Come. And I saw, and be- 
hold, a pale horse : and he that sat upon 
him, his name was Death; and Hades 
followed with him. And there was given 
unto them authority over the fourth part 
of the earth, to kill with sword, and with 
famine, and with death, and by the wild 
beasts of the earth. 

9 And when he opened the fifth seal, I 
saw underneath the altar the souls of 
them that had been slain for the word 
of God, and for the testimony which they 

10 held: and they cried with a great voice, 
saying, How long, O Master, the holy 
and true, dost thou not judge and avenge 



140 The Drama of the Apocalypse vi. 10 

our blood on them that dwell on the 

1 1 earth ? And there was given them to 
each one a white robe ; and it was said 
unto them, that they should rest yet for a 
little time, until their fellow-servants also 
and their brethren, which should be killed 
even as they were, should be fulfilled. 

12 And I saw when he opened the sixth 
seal, and there was a great earthquake ; 
and the sun became black as sackcloth 
of hair, and the whole moon became as 

13 blood; and the stars of the heaven fell 
unto the earth, as a fig tree casteth her 
unripe figs, when she is shaken of a great 

14 wind. And the heaven was removed as 
a scroll when it is rolled up ; and every 
mountain and island were moved out of 

1 5 their places. And the kings of the earth, 
and the princes, and the chief captains, 
and the rich, and the strong, and every 
bondman and freeman, hid themselves in 
the caves and in the rocks of the moun- 

16 tains ; and they say to the mountains and 
to the rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from 



VII. 5 



The Revelation 



141 



the face of him that sitteth on the throne, 
1 7 and from the wrath of the Lamb : for the 
great day of their wrath is come; and 
who is able to stand ? 
7 After this I saw four angels standing 
at the four corners of the earth, holding 
the four winds of the earth, that no wind 
should blow on the earth, or on the sea, 

2 or upon any tree. And I saw another 
angel ascend from the sunrising, having 
the seal of the living God : and he cried 
with a great voice to the four angels, to 
whom it was given to hurt the earth and 

3 the sea, saying, Hurt not the earth, 
neither the sea, nor the trees, till we 
shall have sealed the servants of our God 

4 on their foreheads. And I heard the 
number of them which were sealed, a 
hundred and forty and four thousand, 
sealed out of every tribe of the children 
of Israel. 

5 Of the tribe of Judah were sealed twelve 

thousand : 

Of the tribe of Reuben twelve thousand: 



142 The Drama of the Apocalypse vn. 5 

Of the tribe of Gad twelve thousand: 

6 Of the tribe of Asher twelve thousand : 
Of the tribe of Naphtali twelve thou- 
sand : 

Of the tribe of Manasseh twelve thou- 
sand: 

7 Of the tribe of Simeon twelve thou- 

sand : 

Of the tribe of Levi twelve thousand : 
Of the tribe of Issachar twelve thou- 
sand: 

8 Of the tribe of Zebulun twelve thou- 

sand : 

Of the tribe of Joseph twelve thou- 
sand: 

Of the tribe of Benjamin were sealed 
twelve thousand. 

9 After these things I saw, and behold, 
a great multitude, which no man could 
number, out of every nation, and of all 
tribes and peoples and tongues, standing 
before the throne and before the Lamb, 
arrayed in white robes, and palms in their 

10 hands; and they cry with a great voice, 



i6 



The Revelation 



143 



saying, Salvation unto our God which 
sitteth on the thone, and unto the Lamb. 

1 And all the angels were standing round 
about the throne, and about the elders 
and the four living creatures; and they 
fell before the throne on their faces, and 

2 worshipped God, saying, Amen : Bless- 
ing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanks- 
giving, and honour, and power, and 
might, be unto our God for ever and 

3 ever. Amen. And one of the elders 
answered, saying unto me, These which 
are arrayed in the w r hite robes, who are 

4 they, and whence came they? And I 
say unto him, My lord, thou knowest. 
And he said to me, These are they which 
come out of the great tribulation, and 
they washed their robes, and made them 

5 white in the blood of the Lamb. There- 
fore are they before the throne of God ; 
and they serve him day and night in his 
temple : and he that sitteth on the throne 
shall spread his tabernacle over them. 

6 They shall hunger no more, neither 



144 The Drama of the Apocalypse vn. 16 

thirst any more ; neither shall the sun 
17 strike upon them, nor any heat: for the 
Lamb which is in the midst of the throne 
shall be their shepherd, and shall guide 
them unto fountains of waters of life: 
and God shall wipe away every tear from 
their eyes. 

8 And when he opened the seventh seal, 
there followed a silence in heaven about 

2 the space of half an hour. And I saw 
the seven angels which stand before 
God ; and there were given unto them 
seven trumpets. 

3 And another angel came and stood 
over the altar, having a golden censer; 
and there was given unto him much in- 
cense, that he should add it unto the 
prayers of all the saints upon the golden 

4 altar which was before the throne. And 
the smoke of the incense, with the prayers 
of the saints, went up before God out of 

5 the angel's hand. And the angel taketh 
the censer ; and he filled it with the fire 
of the altar, and cast it upon the earth : 



VIII. II 



The Revelation 



145 



and there followed thunders, and voices, 
and lightnings, and an earthquake. 

6 And the seven angels which had the 
seven trumpets prepared themselves to 
sound. 

7 And the first sounded, and there fol- 
lowed hail and fire, mingled with blood, 
and they were cast upon the earth : and 
the third part of the earth was burnt up, 
and the third part of the trees was burnt 
up, and all green grass was burnt up. 

8 And the second angel sounded, and as 
it were a great mountain burning with fire 
was cast into the sea; and the third part 

9 of the sea became blood ; and there died 
the third part of the creatures which were 
in the sea, even they that had life ; and 
the third part of the ships was destroyed. 

10 And the third angel sounded, and there 
fell from heaven a great star, burning as 
a torch, and it fell upon the third part of 
the rivers, and upon the fountains of the 

1 1 waters ; and the name of the star is called 
Wormwood : and the third part of the 



146 The Drama of the Apocalypse viii.ii 

waters became wormwood ; and many men 
died of the waters, because they were 
made bitter. 

12 And the fourth angel sounded, and the 
third part of the sun was smitten, and 
the third part of the moon, and the 
third part of the stars; that the third 
part of them should be darkened, and the 
day should not shine for the third part of 
it, and the night in like manner. 

13 And I saw, and I heard an eagle, fly- 
ing in mid heaven, saying with a great 
voice, Woe, woe, woe, for them that dwell 
on the earth, by reason of the other voices 
of the trumpet of the three angels, who 
are yet to sound. 

9 And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw 
a star from heaven fallen unto the earth : 
and there was given to him the key of 

2 the pit of the abyss. And he opened the 
pit of the abyss; and there went up a 
smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a 
great furnace ; and the sun and the air 
were darkened by reason of the smoke of 



ix. 9 The Revelation 147 

3 the pit. And out of the smoke came 
forth locusts upon the earth ; and power 
was given them, as the scorpions of the 

4 earth have power. And it was said unto 
them that they should not hurt the grass of 
the earth, neither any green thing, neither 
any tree, but only such men as have not 

5 the seal of God on their foreheads. And 
it was given them that they should not 
kill them, but that they should be tor- 
mented five months : and their torment 
was as the torment of a scorpion, when it 

6 striketh a man. And in those days men 
shall seek death, and shall in no w r ise find 
it ; and they shall desire to die, and death 

7 fleeth from them. And the shapes of 
the locusts were like unto horses pre- 
pared for war ; and upon their heads as 
it were crowns like unto gold, and their 

8 faces were as men's faces. And they had 
hair as the hair of women, and their teeth 

9 were as the teeth of lions. And they had 
breastplates, as it were breastplates of 
iron ; and the sound of their wings was 



148 The Drama of the Apocalypse ix. 9 

as the sound of chariots, of many horses 

10 rushing to war. And they have tails 
like unto scorpions, and stings ; and in 
their tails is their power to hurt men five 

1 1 months. They have over them as king 
the angel of the abyss: his name in 
Hebrew is Abaddon, and in the Greek 
tongue he hath the name Apollyon. 

12 The first Woe is past: behold, there 
come yet two Woes hereafter. 

13 And the sixth angel sounded, and I 
heard a voice from the horns of the 

14 golden altar which is before God, one 
saying to the sixth angel, which had the 
trumpet, Loose the four angels which are 

1 5 bound at the great river Euphrates. And 
the four angels were loosed, which had 
been prepared for the hour and day and 
month and year, that they should kill the 

16 third part of men. And the number of 
the armies of the horsemen was twice ten 
thousand times ten thousand : I heard the 

17 number of them. And thus I saw the 
horses in the vision, and them that sat on 



The Revelation 



149 



them, having breastplates as of fire and 
of hyacinth and of brimstone : and the 
heads of the horses are as the heads of 
lions; and out of their mouths proceed- 

18 eth fire and smoke and brimstone. By 
these three plagues was the third part of 
men killed, by the fire and the smoke 
and the brimstone, which proceeded out 

19 of their mouths. For the power of the 
horses is in their mouth, and in their 
tails : for their tails are like unto serpents, 
and have heads ; and with them they do 

20 hurt. And the rest of mankind, which 
were not killed with these plagues, re- 
pented not of the works of their hands, 
that they should not worship devils, and 
the idols of gold, and of silver, and of 
brass, and of stone, and of wood ; which 

21 can neither see, nor hear, nor walk: and 
they repented not of their murders, nor 
of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, 
nor of their thefts. 

10 And I saw another strong angel coming 
down out of heaven, arrayed with a cloud ; 



150 The Drama of the Apocalypse x. i 



and the rainbow was upon his head, and 
his face was as the sun, and his feet as 

2 pillars of fire ; and he had in his hand 
a little book open: and he set his right 
foot upon the sea, and his left upon the 

3 earth ; and he cried with a great voice, as 
a lion roareth: and when he cried, the 

4 seven thunders uttered their voices. And 
when the seven thunders uttered their 
voices, I was about to write : and I heard 
a voice from heaven saying, Seal up the 
things which the seven thunders uttered, 

5 and write them not. And the angel 
which I saw standing upon the sea and 
upon the earth lifted up his right hand to 

6 heaven, and sware by him that liveth for 
ever and ever, who created the heaven 
and the things that are therein, and the 
earth and the things that are therein, and 
the sea and the things that are therein, that 

7 there shall be time no longer : but in the 
days of the voice of the seventh angel, 
when he is about to sound, then is finished 
the mystery of God, according to the good 



XI. 2 



The Revelation 



151 



tidings which he declared to his servants 

8 the prophets. And the voice which I 
heard from heaven, I heard it again speak- 
ing with me, and saying, Go, take the book 
which is open in the hand of the angel 
that standeth upon the sea and upon the 

9 earth. And I went unto the angel, saying 
unto him that he should give me the little 
book. And he saith unto me, Take it, 
and eat it up ; and it shall make thy belly 
bitter, but in thy mouth it shall be sweet 

10 as honey. And I took the little book out 
of the angel's hand, and ate it up ; and it 
was in my mouth sweet as honey: and 
when I had eaten it, my belly was made 

11 bitter. And they say unto me, Thou 
must prophesy again over many peoples 
and nations and tongues and kings. 

II And there was given me a reed like 
unto a rod ; and one said, Rise, and 
measure the temple of God, and the 
altar, and them that worship therein. 
2 And the court which is without the 
temple leave without, and measure it 



152 The Drama of the Apocalypse xi. 2 

not; for it hath been given unto the 
nations: and the holy city shall they 
tread under foot forty and two months. 

3 And I will give unto my two witnesses, 
and they shall prophesy a thousand two 
hundred and threescore days, clothed 

4 in sackcloth. These are the two olive 
trees and the two candlesticks, standing 

5 before the Lord of the earth. And if 
any man desireth to hurt them, fire pro- 
ceedeth out of their mouth, and de- 
voureth their enemies : and if any man 
shall desire to hurt them, in this manner 

6 must he be killed. These have the 
power to shut the heaven, that it rain 
not during the days of their prophecy: 
and they have power over the waters to 
turn them into blood, and to smite the 
earth with every plague, as often as they 

7 shall desire. And when they shall have 
finished their testimony, the beast that 
cometh up out of the abyss shall make 

8 war with them, and overcome them, and 
kill them. And their dead bodies lie 



xi. 13 The Revelation 1 53 

in the street of the great city, which 
spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, 
where also their Lord was crucified. 
9 And from among the peoples and tribes 
and tongues and nations do men look 
upon their dead bodies three days and a 
half, and suffer not their dead bodies to 

10 be laid in a tomb. And they that dwell 
on the earth rejoice over them, and make 
merry; and they shall send gifts one to 
another; because these two prophets 
tormented them that dwell on the earth. 

1 1 And after the three days and a half the 
breath of life from God entered into 
them, and they stood upon their feet; 
and great fear fell upon them which be- 

12 held them. And they heard a great 
voice from heaven saying unto them, 
Come up hither. And they went up 
into heaven in the cloud ; and their ene- 

13 mies beheld them. And in that hour 
there was a great earthquake, and the 
tenth part of the city fell ; and there 
were killed in the earthquake seven 



154 The Drama of the Apocalypse xi. 13 

thousand persons : and the rest were 
affrighted, and gave glory to the God 
of heaven. 

14 The second Woe is past: behold, the 
third Woe cometh quickly. 

15 And the seventh angel sounded; and 
there followed great voices in heaven, 
and they said, The kingdom of the world 
is become the kingdom of our Lord, and 
of his Christ: and he shall reign for 

16 ever and ever. And the four and twenty 
elders, which sit before God on their 
thrones, fell upon their faces, and wor- 

17 shipped God, saying, We give thee 
thanks, O Lord God, the Almighty, 
which art and which wast ; because thou 
hast taken thy great power, and didst 

18 reign. And the nations were wroth, and 
thy wrath came, and the time of the 
dead to be judged, and the time to give 
their reward to thy servants the proph- 
ets, and to the saints, and to them that 
fear thy name, the small and the great ; 
and to destroy them that destroy the earth. 



xil. 5 The Revelation 155 

19 And there was opened the temple of 
God that is in heaven; and there was 
seen in his temple the ark of his cove- 
nant ; and there followed lightnings, and 
voices, and thunders, and an earthquake, 
and great hail. 

12 And a great sign was seen in heaven ; 
a woman arrayed with the sun, and the 
moon under her feet, and upon her head 
a crown of twelve stars; and she was 

2 with child: and she crieth out, travail- 
ing in birth, and in pain to be delivered. 

3 And there was seen another sign in 
heaven; and behold, a great red dragon, 
having seven heads and ten horns, and 

4 upon his heads seven diadems. And 
his tail draweth the third part of the 
stars of heaven, and did cast them to 
the earth: and the dragon stood before 
the woman which was about to be de- 
livered, that when she was delivered, he 

5 might devour her child. And she was 
delivered of a son, a man child, who is 
to rule all the nations with a rod of iron : 



156 The Drama of the Apocalypse xn. 5 

and her child was caught up unto God, 

6 and unto his throne. And the woman 
fled into the wilderness, where she hath 
a place prepared of God, that there they 
may nourish her a thousand two hun- 
dred and threescore days. 

7 And there was war in heaven : Michael 
and his angels going forth to war with 
the dragon ; and the dragon warred and 

8 his angels ; and they prevailed not, 
neither was their place found any more 

9 in heaven. And the great dragon was 
cast down, the old serpent, he that is 
called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver 
of the whole world ; he was cast down 
to the earth, and his angels were cast 

10 down with him. And I heard a great 
voice in heaven, saying, Now is come 
the salvation, and the power, and the 
kingdom of our God, and the authority 
of his Christ : for the accuser of our 
brethren is cast down, which accuseth 
them before our God day and night. 

1 1 And they overcame him because of the 



XII. 17 



The Revelation 



157 



blood of the Lamb, and because of the 
word of their testimony ; and they loved 

12 not their life even unto death. There- 
fore rejoice, O heavens, and ye that 
dwell in them. Woe for the earth and 
for the sea: because the devil is gone 
down unto you, having great wrath, 
knowing that he hath but a short time. 

13 And when the dragon saw that he was 
cast down to the earth, he persecuted 
the woman which brought forth the man 

14 child. And there were given to the 
woman the two wings of the great eagle, 
that she might fly into the wilderness 
unto her place, where she is nourished 
for a time, and times, and half a time, 

15 from the face of the serpent. And the 
serpent cast out of his mouth after the 
woman water as a river, that he might 
cause her to be carried away by the 

16 stream. And the earth helped the 
woman, and the earth opened her mouth, 
and swallowed up the river which the 

17 dragon cast out of his mouth. And the 



158 The Drama of the Apocalypse xn. 17 

dragon waxed wroth with the woman, 
and went away to make war with the 
rest of her seed, which keep the com- 
mandments of God, and hold the testi- 
13 mony of Jesus: and he stood upon the 
sand of the sea. . 

And I saw a beast coming up out of 
the sea, having ten horns and seven 
heads, and on his horns ten diadems, 
and upon his heads names of blasphemy. 

2 And the beast which I saw was like unto 
a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of 
a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a 
lion : and the dragon gave him his pow r er, 

3 and his throne, and great authority. And 
I saw one of his heads as though it had 
been smitten unto death ; and his death- 
stroke was healed : and the whole earth 

4 wondered after the beast ; and they wor- 
shipped the dragon, because he gave his 
authority unto the beast ; and they wor- 
shipped the beast, saying, Who is like 
unto the beast? and who is able to war 

5 with him ? and there was given to him a 



XIII. ii 



The Revelation 



159 



mouth speaking great things and blas- 
phemies ; and there was given to him 
authority to continue forty and two 

6 months. And he opened his mouth for 
blasphemies against God, to blaspheme 
his name, and his tabernacle, even them 

7 that dwell in the heaven. And it was 
given unto him to make war with the 
saints, and to overcome them : and there 
was given to him authority over every 
tribe and people and tongue and nation. 

8 And all that dwell on the earth shall wor- 
ship him, every one whose name hath not 
been written in the book of life of the 
Lamb that hath been slain from the foun- 
dation of the world. If any man hath an 

9 ear, let him hear. If any man is for cap- 
tivity, into captivity he goeth : if any man 
shall kill with the sword, with the sword 
must he be killed. Here is the patience 
and the faith of the saints. 

1 1 And I saw another beast coming up out 
of the earth ; and he had two horns like 
unto a lamb, and he spake as a dragon. 



160 The Drama of the Apocalypse xiii. 12 

12 And he exerciseth all the authority of the 
first beast in his sight. And he maketh 
the earth and them that dwell therein to 
worship the first beast, whose death-stroke 

1 3 was healed. And he doeth great signs, 
that he should even make fire to come 
down out of heaven upon the earth in 

14 the sight of men. And he deceiveth 
them that dwell on the earth by reason of 
the signs which it was given him to do 
in the sight of the beast ; saying to them 
that dwell on the earth, that they should 
make an image to the beast, who hath 

15 the stroke of the sword, and lived. And 
it was given unto him to give breath to 
it, even to the image of the beast, that the 
image of the beast should both speak, and 
cause that as many as should not wor- 
ship the image of the beast should be 

16 killed. And he causeth all, the small and 
the great, and the rich and the poor, and 
the free and the bond, that there be given 
them a mark on their right hand, or upon 

17 their forehead; and that no man should 



XIV. 4 



The Revelation 



161 



be able to buy or to sell, save he that hath 
the mark, even the name of the beast or 

1 8 the number of his name. Here is wisdom. 
He that hath understanding, let him 
count the number of the beast ; for it is 
the number of a man : and his number is 
Six hundred and sixty and six. 

14 And I saw, and behold, the Lamb 
standing on the mount Zion, and with 
him a hundred and forty and four thou- 
sand, having his name, and the name of 
his Father, written on their foreheads. 

2 And I heard a voice from heaven, as the 
voice of many waters, and as the voice of 
a great thunder : and the voice which I 
heard was as the voice of harpers harping 

3 with their harps : and they sing as it were 
a new song before the throne, and before 
the four living creatures and the elders: 
and no man could learn the song save 
the hundred and forty and four thousand, 
even they that had been purchased out of 

4 the earth. These are they which were 
not defiled with women ; for they are 

M 



162 The Drama of the Apocalypse xiv. 4 



virgins. These are they which follow 
the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. These 
were purchased from among men, to be 

5 the firstfruits unto the Lamb. And in 
their mouth was found no lie : they are 
without blemish. 

6 And I saw another angel flying in mid 
heaven, having an eternal gospel to pro- 
claim unto them that dwell on the earth, 
and unto every nation and tribe and 

7 tongue and people ; and he saith with 
a great voice, Fear God, and give him 
glory; for the hour of his judgement is 
come : and worship him that made the 
heaven and the earth and sea and foun- 
tains of waters, 

8 And another, a second angel, followed, 
saying, Fallen, fallen is Babylon the 
great, which hath made all the nations 
to drink of the wine of the wrath of her 
fornication. 

9 And another angel, a third, followed 
them, saying with a great voice, If any 
man worshippeth the beast and his 



xiv. 14 The Revelation 163 

image, and receiveth a mark on his fore- 

10 head, or upon his hand, he also shall 
drink of the wine of the wrath of God, 
which is prepared unmixed in the cup 
of his anger; and he shall be tormented 
with fire and brimstone in the presence 
of the holy angels, and in the presence of 

1 1 the Lamb : and the smoke of their tor- 
ment goeth up for ever and ever; and 
they have no rest day and night, they 
that worship the beast and his image, and 
whoso receiveth the mark of his name. 

12 Here is the patience of the saints, they 
that keep the commandments of God, 
and the faith of Jesus. 

13 And I heard a voice from heaven saying, 
Write, Blessed are the dead which die in 
the Lord from henceforth: yea, saith the 
Spirit, that they may rest from their la- 
bours ; for their works follow with them. 

14 And I saw, and behold, a white cloud; 
and on the cloud I saw one sitting like 
unto a son of man, having on his head 
a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp 



164 The Drama of the Apocalypse xiv. 15 

15 sickle. And another angel came out 
from the temple, crying with a great voice 
to him that sat on the cloud, Send forth 
thy sickle, and reap : for the hour to reap 
is come ; for the harvest of the earth is 

16 overripe. And he that sat on the cloud 
cast his sickle upon the earth; and the 
earth was reaped. 

17 And another angel came out from the 
temple which is in heaven, he also having 

18 a sharp sickle. And another angel came 
out from the altar, he that hath power 
over fire ; and he called with a great voice 
to him that had the sharp sickle, say- 
ing, Send forth thy sharp sickle, and 
gather the clusters of the vine of the 
earth ; for her grapes are fully ripe. 

19 And the angel cast his sickle into the 
earth, and gathered the vintage of the 
earth, and cast it into the winepress, 
the great winepress of the wrath of God. 

20 And the winepress was trodden without 
the city, and there came out blood from 
the winepress, even unto the bridles of the 



XV. 5 



The Revelation 



165 



horses, as far as a thousand and six hun- 
dred furlongs. 
15 And I saw another sign in heaven, 
great and marvellous, seven angels having 
seven plagues, which are the last, for in 
them is finished the wrath of God. 

2 And I saw as it were a glassy sea 
mingled with fire ; and them that come 
victorious from the beast, and from his 
image, and from the number of his name, 
standing by the glassy sea, having harps 

3 of God. And they sing the song of 
Moses the servant of God, and the song 
of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvel- 
lous are thy works, O Lord God, the 
Almighty ; righteous and true are thy 

4 ways, thou King of the ages. Who shall 
not fear, O Lord, and glorify thy name ? 
for thou only art holy ; for all the nations 
shall come and worship before thee ; for 
thy righteous acts have been made mani- 
fest. 

5 And after these things I saw, and the 
temple of the tabernacle of the testimony 



166 Hie Drama of the Apocalypse XV. 6 

6 in heaven was opened : and there came 
out from the temple the seven angels 
that had the seven plagues, arrayed with 
precious stone, pure and bright, and girt 

7 about their breasts with golden girdles. 
And one of the four living creatures gave 
unto the seven angels seven golden bowls 
full of the wrath of God, who liveth for 

8 ever and ever. And the temple was filled 
with smoke from the glory of God, and 
from his power; and none was able to 
enter into the temple, till the seven 
plagues of the seven angels should be 
finished. 

l6 And I heard a great voice out of the 
temple, saying to the seven angels, Go ye, 
and pour out the seven bowls of the 
wrath of God into the earth. 

2 And the first went, and poured out 
his bowl into the earth ; and it became a 
noisome and grievous sore upon the men 
which had the mark of the beast, and 
which worshipped his image. 

3 And the second poured out his bowl 



XVI. io 



The Revelation 



167 



into the sea; and it became blood as of 
a dead man ; and every living soul died, 
even the things that were in the sea. 

4 And the third poured out his bowl 
into the rivers and the fountains of the 

5 waters ; and it became blood. And I 
heard the angel of the waters saying, 
Righteous art thou, which art and which 
wast, thou Holy One, because thou didst 

6 thus judge : for they poured out the blood 
of saints and prophets, and blood hast 

7 thou given them to drink : they are 
worthy. And I heard the altar saying, 
Yea, O Lord God, the Almighty, true 
and righteous are thy judgements. 

8 And the fourth poured out his bowl 
upon the sun ; and it was given unto it 

9 to scorch men with fire. And men were 
scorched with great heat : and they blas- 
phemed the name of the God which hath 
the power over these plagues ; and they 
repented not to give him glory. 

io And the fifth poured out his bowl upon 
the throne of the beast ; and his kingdom 



168 The Drama of the Apocalypse xvi. 10 

was darkened ; and they gnawed their 

1 1 tongues for pain, and they blasphemed 
the God of heaven because of their pains 
and their sores ; and they repented not of 
their works. 

12 And the sixth poured out his bowl 
upon the great river, the river Euphrates ; 
and the water thereof was dried up, that 
the way might be made ready for the 

13 kings that come from the sunrising. 
And I saw coming out of the mouth of 
the dragon, and out of the mouth of the 
beast, and out of the mouth of the false 
prophet, three unclean spirits, as it 

14 were frogs: for they are spirits of devils, 
working signs ; which go forth unto the 
kings of the whole world, to gather them 
together unto the war of the great day of 

15 God, the Almighty. (Behold, I come as 
a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and 
keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, 

16 and they see his shame.) And they 
gathered them together into the place 
which is called in Hebrew Har-Magedon. 



XVII. i 



The Revelation 



169 



17 And the seventh poured out his bowl 
upon the air ; and there came forth a 
great voice out of the temple, from the 

18 throne, saying, It is done: and there were 
lightnings, and voices, and thunders ; and 
there was a great earthquake, such as was 
not since there were men upon the earth, 

19 so great an earthquake, so mighty. And 
the great city was divided into three 
parts, and the cities of the nations fell : 
and Babylon the great was remembered 
in the sight of God, to give unto her the 
cup of the wine of the fierceness of his 

20 w r rath. And every island fled away, and 

2 1 the mountains were not found. And great 
hail, every stone about the weight of a 
talent, cometh down out of heaven upon 
men : and men blasphemed God because 
of the plague of the hail ; for the plague 
thereof is exceeding great. 

17 And there came one of the seven angels 
that had the seven bow T ls, and spake with 
me, saying, Come hither, I will shew thee 
the judgement of the great harlot that 



I7O The Drama of the Apocalypse xvii. 2 

2 sitteth upon many waters ; with whom 
the kings of the earth committed fornica- 
tion, and they that dwell in the earth were 
made drunken with the wine of her forni- 

3 cation. And he carried me away in the 
Spirit into a wilderness: and I saw a 
woman sitting upon a scarlet-coloured 
beast, full of names of blasphemy, having 

4 seven heads and ten horns. And the 
woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, 
and decked with gold and precious stone 
and pearls, having in her hand a golden 
cup full of abominations, even the unclean 

5 things of her fornication, and upon her fore- 
head a name written, mystery, babylon 

THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF THE HARLOTS 
AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. 

6 And I saw the woman drunken with the 
blood of the saints, and with the blood of 
the martyrs of Jesus. And when I saw 
her, I wondered with a great wonder. 

7 And the angel said unto me, Wherefore 
didst thou wonder ? I will tell thee the 
mystery of the woman, and of the beast 



xvii. 13 The Revelation I7I 

that carrieth her, which hath the seven 

8 heads and the ten horns. The beast that 
thou sawest was, and is not ; and is about 
to come up out of the abyss, and to go 
into perdition. And they that dwell on 
the earth shall wonder, they whose name 
hath not been written in the book of life 
from the foundation of the world, when 
they behold the beast, how that he was, 

9 and is not, and shall come. Here is the 
mind which hath wisdom. The seven 
heads are seven mountains, on w r hich the 

10 woman sitteth: and they are seven kings; 
the five are fallen, the one is, the other is 
not yet come ; and when he cometh, he 

1 1 must continue a little while. And the 
beast that was, and is not, is himself also 
an eighth, and is of the seven ; and he 

12 goeth into perdition. And the ten horns 
that thou sawest are ten kings, which have 
received no kingdom as yet; but they 
receive authority as kings, with the beast, 

13 for one hour. These have one mind, and 
they give their power and authority unto 



172 The Drama of the Apocalypse xvil 14 

14 the beast. These shall war against the 
Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome 
them, for he is Lord of lords, and King of 
kings ; and they also shall overcome that 
are with him, called and chosen and faith- 

15 ful. And he saith unto me, The waters 
which thou sawest, where the harlot sit- 
teth, are peoples, and multitudes, and 

16 nations, and tongues. And the ten horns 
which thou sawest, and the beast, these 
shall hate the harlot, and shall make her 
desolate and naked, and shall eat her 
flesh, and shall burn her utterly with fire. 

17 For God did put in their hearts to do his 
mind, and to come to one mind, and to 
give their kingdom unto the beast, until 
the words of God should be accomplished. 

18 And the woman whom thou sawest is the 
great city, which reigneth over the kings 
of the earth. 

18 After these things I saw another angel 
coming down out of heaven, having great 
authority; and the earth was lightened 
2 with his glory. And he cried with a 



XVIII. 7 



The Revelation 



\73 



mighty voice, saying, Fallen, fallen is 
Babylon the great, and is become a habi- 
tation of devils, and a hold of every un- 
clean spirit, and a hold of every unclean 

3 and hateful bird. For by the wine of the 
wrath of her fornication all the nations 
are fallen; and the kings of the earth 
committed fornication with her, and the 
merchants of the earth waxed rich by the 
power of her wantonness. 

4 And I heard another voice from heaven, 
saying, Come forth, my people, out of 
her, that ye have no fellowship with her 
sins, and that ye receive not of her 

5 plagues : for her sins have reached even 
unto heaven, and God hath remembered 

6 her iniquities. Render unto her even as 
she rendered, and double unto her the 
double according to her works: in the 
cup which she mingled, mingle unto her 

7 double. How much soever she glori- 
fied herself, and waxed wanton, so much 
give her of torment and mourning: for 
she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and 



The Drama of the Apocalypse xvm. 7 



am no widow, and shall in no wise see 

8 mourning. Therefore in one day shall 
her plagues come, death, and mourning, 
and famine ; and she shall be utterly 
burned with fire ; for strong is the Lord 

9 God which judged her. And the kings 
of the earth, who committed fornication 
and lived wantonly with her, shall weep 
and wail over her, when they look upon 

the smoke of her burning, standing afar 
off for the fear of her torment, saying, 
Woe, woe, the great city, Babylon, the 
strong city ! for in one hour is thy judge- 

1 ment come. And the merchants of the 
earth weep and mourn over her, for no 
man buyeth their merchandise any more ; 

2 merchandise of gold, and silver, and 
precious stone, and pearls, and fine linen, 
and purple, and silk, and scarlet ; and all 
thyine wood, and every vessel of ivory, 
and every vessel made of most precious 
wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble ; 

3 and cinnamon, and spice, and incense, 
and ointment, and frankincense, and wine, 



xviii. i9 The Revelation 



175 



and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and cat- 
tle, and sheep ; and merchandise of horses 
and chariots and slaves ; and souls of men. 

14 And the fruits which thy soul lusted after 
are gone from thee, and all things that 
were dainty and sumptuous are per- 
ished from thee, and men shall find them 

15 no more at all. The merchants of these 
things, who were made rich by her, shall 
stand afar off for the fear of her torment, 

16 weeping and mourning; saying, Woe, 
woe, the great city, she that was arrayed 
in fine linen and purple and scarlet, and 
decked with gold and precious stone and 

1 7 pearl ! for in one hour so great riches is 
made desolate. And every shipmaster, 
and every one that saileth any whither, 
and mariners, and as many as gain their 

18 living by sea, stood afar off, and cried 
out as they looked upon the smoke of 
her burning, saying, What city is like 

19 the great city? And they cast dust 
on their heads, and cried, weeping and 
mourning, saying, Woe, woe, the great 



The Drama of the Apocalypse xvm. 19 

city, wherein were made rich all that had 
their ships in the sea by reason of her 
costliness! for in one hour is she made 
desolate. Rejoice over her, thou heaven, 
and ye saints, and ye apostles, and ye 
prophets; for God hath judged your 
judgement on her. 

And a strong angel took up a stone as 
it were a great millstone, and cast it into 
the sea, saying, Thus with a mighty fall 
shall Babylon, the great city, be cast 
down, and shall be found no more at all. 
And the voice of harpers and minstrels 
and flute-players and trumpeters shall be 
heard no more at all in thee; and no 
craftsman, of whatsoever craft, shall be 
found any more at all in thee; and the 
voice of a millstone shall be heard no 
more at all in thee; and the light of a 
lamp shall shine no more at all in thee ; 
and the voice of the bridegroom and of 
the bride shall be heard no more at all 
in thee: for thy merchants were the 
princes of the earth; for with thy sor- 



xix. 6 The Revelation 177 

24 eery were all the nations deceived. And 
in her was found the blood of prophets 
and of saints, and of all that have been 
slain upon the earth. 

19 After these things I heard as it were a 
great voice of a great multitude in heaven, 
saying, Hallelujah ; Salvation, and glory, 

2 and power, belong to our God: for true 
and righteous are his judgements; for he 
hath judged the great harlot, which did 
corrupt the earth with her fornication, 
and he hath avenged the blood of his 

3 servants at her hand. And a second 
time they say, Hallelujah. And her 

4 smoke goeth up for ever and ever. And 
the four and twenty elders and the four 
living creatures fell down and worshipped 
God that sitteth on the throne, saying, 

5 Amen; Hallelujah. And a voice came 
forth from the throne, saying, Give praise 
to our God, all ye his servants, ye that 

6 fear him, the small and the great. And 
I heard as it were the voice of a great 
multitude, and as the voice of many 

N 



178 The Drama of the Apocalypse xix. 6 

waters, and as the voice of mighty thun- 
ders, saying, Hallelujah : for the Lord 

7 our God, the Almighty, reigneth. Let 
us rejoice and be exceeding glad, and let 
us give the glory unto him: for the mar- 
riage of the Lamb is come, and his wife 

8 hath made herself ready. And it was 
given unto her that she should array her- 
self in fine linen, bright and pure : for the 
fine linen is the righteous acts of the 

9 saints. And he saith unto me, Write, 
Blessed are they which are bidden to the 
marriage supper of the Lamb. And he 
saith unto me, These are true words of 

10 God. And I fell down before his feet to 
worship him. And he saith unto me, See 
thou do it not : I am a fellow-servant with 
thee and with thy brethren that hold the 
testimony of Jesus : worship God : for 
the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of 
prophecy. 

1 1 And I saw the heaven opened ; and 
behold, a white horse, and he that sat 
thereon, called Faithful and True; and 



xix. 1 8 The Revelation I79 

in righteousness he doth judge and make 

12 war. And his eyes are a flame of fire, 
and upon his head are many diadems; 
and he hath a name written, which no 

13 one knoweth but he himself. And he 
is arrayed in a garment sprinkled with 
blood : and his name is called The Word 

14 of God. And the armies which are in 
heaven followed him upon white horses, 
clothed in fine linen, white and pure. 

1 5 And out of his mouth proceedeth a sharp 
sword, that with it he should smite the 
nations: and he shall rule them with a 
rod of iron: and he treadeth the wine- 
press of the fierceness of the wrath of 

16 Almighty God. And he hath on his 
garment and on his thigh a name writ- 
ten, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS. 

17 And I saw an angel standing in the 
sun; and he cried with a loud voice, 
saying to all the birds that fly in mid 
heaven, Come and be gathered together 

18 unto the great supper of God; that ye 
may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh 



180 The Drama of the Apocalypse xix. 18 

of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, 
and the flesh of horses and of them that 
sit thereon, and the flesh of all men, both 
free and bond, and small and great. 

19 And I saw the beast, and the kings of 
the earth, and their armies, gathered 
together to make war against him that 
sat upon the horse, and against his army. 

20 And the beast was taken, and with him 
the false prophet that w r rought the signs 
in his sight, wherewith he deceived them 
that had received the mark of the beast, 
and them that worshipped his image: 
they twain were cast alive into the lake 

2 1 of fire that burnetii with brimstone : and 
the rest were killed with the sword of 
him that sat upon the horse, even the 
sword which came forth out of his 
mouth : and all the birds were filled with 
their flesh. 

20 And I saw an angel coming down out 
of heaven, having the key of the abyss 
2 and a great chain in his hand. And he 
laid hold on the dragon, the old serpent, 



XX. 6 



The Revelation 



181 



which is the Devil and Satan, and bound 

3 him for a thousand years, and cast him 
into the abyss, and shut it, and sealed it 
over him, that he should deceive the na- 
tions no more, until the thousand years 
should be finished : after this he must be 
loosed for a little time. 

4 And I saw thrones, and they sat upon 
them, and judgement was given unto 
them: and I saw the souls of them that 
had been beheaded for the testimony of 
Jesus, and for the word of God, and such 
as worshipped not the beast, neither his 
image, and received not the mark upon 
their forehead and upon their hand ; and 
they lived, and reigned with Christ a 

5 thousand years. The rest of the dead 
lived not until the thousand years should 
be finished. This is the first resurrection. 

6 Blessed and holy is he that hath part 
in the first resurrection: over these the 
second death hath no power; but they 
shall be priests of God and of Christ, and 
shall reign with him a thousand years. 



Tloe Drama of the Apocalypse 



XX. 7 



7 And when the thousand years are fin- 
ished, Satan shall be loosed out of his 

8 prison, and shall come forth to deceive 
the nations which are in the four corners 
of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather 
them together to the war: the number 

9 of whom is as the sand of the sea. And 
they went up over the breadth of the 
earth, and compassed the camp of the 
saints about, and the beloved city: and 
fire came down out of heaven, and de- 

voured them. And the devil that de- 
ceived them was cast into the lake of fire 
and brimstone, where are also the beast 
and the false prophet; and they shall be 
tormented day and night for ever and 
ever. 

1 And I saw a great white throne, and 
him that sat upon it, from whose face 
the earth and the heaven fled away ; and 

2 there was found no place for them. And 
I saw the dead, the great and the small, 
standing before the throne ; and books 
were opened: and another book was 



XXI. 3 



The Revelation 



183 



opened, which is the book of life : and the 
dead were judged out of the things which 
were written in the books, according to 

13 their works. And the sea gave up the 
dead which were in it; and death and 
Hades gave up the dead which were in 
them : and they were judged every man 

14 according to their works. And death 
and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. 
This is the second death, even the lake 

15 of fire. And if any was not found w r rit- 
ten in the book of life, he was cast into 
the lake of fire. 

21 And I saw a new heaven and a new 
earth: for the first heaven and the first 
earth are passed away; and the sea is 

2 no more. And I saw the holy city, new 
Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven 
from God, made ready as a bride adorned 

3 for her husband. And I heard a great 
voice out of the throne saying, Behold, 
the tabernacle of God is with men, and 
he shall dwell with them, and they shall 
be his peoples, and God himself shall 



184 The Drama of the Apocalypse xxi. 4 

4 be with them, and be their God: and 
he shall wipe away every tear from 
their eyes ; and death shall be no more ; 
neither shall there be mourning, nor cry- 
ing, nor pain, any more : the first things 

5 are passed away. And he that sitteth 
on the throne said, Behold, I make all 
things new. And he saith, Write: for 

6 these words are faithful and true. And 
he said unto me, They are come to pass. 
I am the Alpha and the Omega, the 
beginning and the end. I will give unto 
him that is athirst of the fountain of the 

7 water of life freely. He that overcometh 
shall inherit these things ; and I will be 

8 his God, and he shall be my son. But 
for the fearful, and unbelieving, and 
abominable, and murderers, and fornica- 
tors, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all 
liars, their part shall be in the lake that 
burneth with fire and brimstone ; which 
is the second death. 

9 And there came one of the seven angels 
who had the seven bowls, who were laden 



XXI. i6 



The Revelation 



185 



with the seven last plagues; and he 
spake with me, saying, Come hither, I 
will shew thee the bride, the wife of the 

10 Lamb. And he carried me away in the 
Spirit to a mountain great and high, and 
shewed me the holy city Jerusalem, com- 
ing down out of heaven from God, having 

1 1 the glory of God : her light was like unto 
a stone most precious, as it were a jasper 

12 stone, clear as crystal: having a wall 
great and high ; having twelve gates, and 
at the gates twelve angels; and names 
written thereon, which are the names of 
the twelve tribes of the children of Israel : 

1 3 on the east were three gates ; and on the 
north three gates ; and on the south three 

14 gates; and on the west three gates. And 
the wall of the city had twelve founda- 
tions, and on them twelve names of the 

15 twelve apostles of the Lamb. And he 
that spake with me had for a measure a 
golden reed to measure the city, and the 

16 gates thereof, and the wall thereof. And 
the city lieth foursquare, and the length 



186 The Drama of the Apocalypse xxi. 16 

thereof is as great as the breadth : and 
he measured the city with the reed, 
twelve thousand furlongs : the length 
and the breadth and the height thereof 

17 are equal. And he measured the wall 
thereof, a hundred and forty and four 
cubits, according to the measure of a man, 

18 that is, of an angel. And the building of 
the wall thereof was jasper : and the city 

19 was pure gold, like unto pure glass. The 
foundations of the wall of the city were 
adorned with all manner of precious 
stones. The first foundation was jasper; 
the second, sapphire ; the third, chalced- 

20 ony ; the fourth, emerald ; the fifth, sar- 
donyx; the sixth, sardius ; the seventh, 
chrysolite ; the eighth, beryl ; the ninth, 
topaz; the tenth, chrysoprase; the 
eleventh, jacinth ; the twelfth, amethyst. 

21 And the twelve gates were twelve pearls ; 
each one of the several gates was of one 
pearl : and the street of the city was pure 

22 gold, as it were transparent glass. And 
I saw no temple therein : for the Lord 



xxn. 2 The Revelation I87 

God the Almighty, and the Lamb, are the 

23 temple thereof. And the city hath no 
need of the sun, neither of the moon, to 
shine upon it: for the glory of God did 
lighten it, and the lamp thereof is the 

24 Lamb. And the nations shall walk 
amidst the light thereof : and the kings 
of the earth do bring their glory into it. 

25 And the gates thereof shall in no wise be 
shut by day (for there shall be no night 

26 there) : and they shall bring the glory 
and the honour of the nations into it : 

27 and there shall in no wise enter into it 
any thing unclean, or he that maketh an 
abomination and a lie: but only they 
which are written in the Lamb's book of 

22 life. And he shewed me a river of water 
of life, bright as crystal, proceeding out of 
2 the throne of God and of the Lamb, in 
the midst of the street thereof. And on 
this side of the river and on that was the 
tree of life, bearing twelve manner of 
fruits, yielding its fruit every month : and 
the leaves of the tree were for the healing 



188 The Drama of the Apocalypse xxn. 3 

3 of the nations. An4 there shall be no 
curse any more : and the throne of God 
and of the Lamb shall be therein: and 

4 his servants shall do him service; and 
they shall see his face ; and his name 

5 shall be on their foreheads. And there 
shall be night no more; and they need 
no light of lamp, neither light of sun ; 
for the Lord God shall give them 
light : and they shall reign for ever and 
ever. 

6 And he said unto me, These words are 
faithful and true : and the Lord, the God 
of the spirits of the prophets, sent his 
angel to shew unto his servants the things 

7 which must shortly come to pass. And 
behold, I come quickly. Blessed is he 
that keepeth the words of the prophecy 
of this book. 

8 And I John am he that heard and saw 
these things. And when I heard and saw, 
I fell down to worship before the feet of 
the angel which shewed me these things. 

9 And he saith unto me, See thou do it 



XXII. 15 



The Revelation 



189 



not: I am a fellow-servant with thee and 
with thy brethren the prophets, and with 
them which keep the words of this book : 
worship God. 

10 And he saith unto me, Seal not up the 
words of the prophecy of this book ; for 

1 1 the time is at hand. He that is unright- 
eous, let him do unrighteousness still: 
and he that is filthy, let him be made 
filthy still: and he that is righteous, let 
him do righteousness still : and he that is 

12 holy, let him be made holy still. Behold, 
I come quickly ; and my reward is with 
me, to render to each man according as his 

1 3 work is. I am the Alpha and the Omega, 
the first and the last, the beginning and 

14 the end. Blessed are they that wash 
their robes, that they may have the right 
to come to the tree of life, and may enter 

15 in by the gates into the city. Without 
are the dogs, and the sorcerers, and 
the fornicators, and the murderers, and 
the idolaters, and every one that loveth 
and maketh a lie. 



190 The Drama of the Apocalypse xxii. 16 

1 6 I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify 
unto you these things for the churches. 
I am the root and the offspring of David, 
the bright, the morning star. 

17 And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. 
And he that heareth, let him say, Come. 
And he that is athirst, let him come: he 
that will, let him take the water of life 
freely. 

18 I testify unto every man that heareth 
the words of the prophecy of this book, 
if any man shall add unto them, God 
shall add unto him the plagues which 

19 are written in this book : and if any man 
shall take away from the words of the 
book of this prophecy, God shall take 
away his part from the tree of life, and 
out of the holy city, which are written in 
this book. 

20 He which testifieth these things saith, 
Yea: I come quickly. Amen: come, 
Lord Jesus. 

21 The grace of the Lord Jesus be with 
the saints. Amen. 



APPENDIX 



The following table of the Acts and Scenes of the drama 
is arranged with reference to the scheme here adopted. 
Together with this are given the corresponding passages in 
the Book of the Revelation, where they may be found, and 
the pages of this Essay on which they are mentioned. 



Title, Chap. I, 1-4. Page 35 

Prologue, " I, 4— II. " 35 

Salutation, w II-IV. « 38 



Act I. The Opening of the Seals of Fate 

Chap. IV-VIII, 2. Page 38-48 

Scene 1, « IV. " 38 

" 2, " V. « 43 

« 3, " VI. " 44 

" 4, " VII-VIII, 2. " 45 



Act II. The Blowing of the Trumpets of Woe 

Chap. VIII. 2-XII. Page 48-57 

Scene 1, " VIII, 2-6. " 48 

" 2, " VIII. 6-X. « 49 

" 3, M X. " 52 

" 4, « XI, 1-15. " 53 

u 5, " XI, 15-XII. " 56 



191 



192 



Appendix 



Act III. The Establishment of the Kingdom, and 
its Results 

Chap. XII-XV. Page 57-69 

Scene 1, " XII. " 57 

« 2, " XIII. " 59 

« 3, " XIV. « 63 

Act IV. The Judgment of the Earth and of Rome 

Chap. XV-XIX, 5. Page 69-76 

Scene 1, " XV, 1-5. " 69 

" 2, " XV, 5-XVII. " 70 

" 3, " XVII, XVIII. « 72 

« 4, " XIX, 1-5. " 75 



Act V. The Marriage of the Prince of Heaven, 
and the Glory of the Kingdom 

Chap. XIX, 5-XXII, 6. Page 76-85 

Scene 1, « XIX, 5-XX. " 76 

« 2, « XX. " 77 

« 3, " XXI-XXII, 6. " 80 



Epilogue, Chap. XXII, 6-18. Page 85 

Envoi, " XXII, 1 8-. " 86 



New Testament Handbooks 



EDITED BY 

SHAILER MATHEWS 

Professor of New Testament History and Interpretation t 

University of Chicago 

Arrangements are made for the following volumes, and the publishers 
will, on request, send notice of the issue of each volume as it appears and 
each descriptive circular sent out later; such requests for information 
should state whether address is permanent or not : — 

The History of the Textual Criticism of the 

New Testament 

Prof. Marvin R. Vincent, Professor of New Testament Exegesis, 
Union Theological Seminary. [Now ready. 

Professor Vincent's contributions to the study of the New Testament rank him 
among the first American exegetes. His most recent publication is " A Critical 
and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistles to the Philippians and to Philemon " 
{International Critical Commentary), which was preceded by a " Students' 
New Testament Handbook," " Word Studies in the New Testament," and 
others. 

The History of the Higher Criticism of the 
New Testament 

Prof. Henry S. Nash, Professor of New Testament Interpretation, 
Cambridge Divinity School. [Now ready. 

Of Professor Nash's " Genesis of the Social Conscience," The Outlook said: " The 
results of Professor Nash's ripe thought are presented in a luminous, compact, 
and often epigrammatic style. The treatment is at once masterful and helpful, 
and the book ought to be a quickening influence of the highest kind; it surely 
will establish the fame of its author as a profound thinker, one from whom we 
have a right to expect future inspiration of a kindred sort." 

Introduction to the Books of the New Testament 

Prof. B. Wisner Bacon, Professor of New Testament Interpretation, 

Yale University. [Now ready. 

Professor Bacon's works in the field of Old Testament criticism include " The 
Triple Tradition of Exodus," and " The Genesis of Genesis," a study of the 
documentary sources of the books of Moses. In the field of New Testament 
study he has published a number of brilliant papers, the most recent of which is 
" The Autobiography of Jesus," in the American journal of Theology . 

The History of New Testament Times in Palestine 

Prof. Shailer Mathews, Professor of New Testament History and 
Interpretation, The University of Chicago. [Now ready. 

The Congregationalist says of Prof. Shailer Mathews's recent work, " The Social 
Teaching of Jesus" : "Re-reading deepens the impression that the author is 
scholarly, devout, awake to all modern thought, and yet conservative and pre- 
eminently sane. If, after reading the chapters dealing with Jesus' attitude 
toward man^ society, the family, the state, and wealth, the reader will not a^ree 
with us in this opinion, we greatly err as prophets." 



The Life of Paul 

Prof. Rush Rhees, President of the University of Rochester. 

Professor Rhees is well known from his series of " Inductive Lessons " contribute*! 
to the Sunday School Times. His " Outline of the Life of Paul," privately 
printed, has had a flattering reception from New Testament scholars. 

The History of the Apostolic Age 

Dr. C. W. Votaw, Instructor in New Testament Literature, The 

University of Chicago. 

Of Dr. Votaw's " Inductive Study of the Founding of the Christian Church," Modern 
Church, Edinburgh, says: "No fuller analysis of the later books of the New 
Testament could be desired, and no better programme could be offered for their 
study, than that afforded in the scheme of fifty lessons on the Founding of the 
Christian Church, by Clyde W. Votaw. It is well adapted alike for practical 
and more scholarly students of the Bible." 

The Teaching of Jesus 

Prof. George B. Stevens, Professor of Systematic Theology, Yale 
University. [Now ready. 

Professor Stevens's volumes upon " The Johannine Theology," " The Pauline The- 
ology," as well as his recent volume on " The Theology of the New Testament," 
have made him probably the most prominent writer on biblical theology in. 
America. His new volume will be among the most important of his works. 

The Biblical Theology of the New Testament 

Prof. E. P. Gould, Professor of New Testament Interpretation, Prot- 
estant Episcopal Divinity School, Philadelphia. [Now ready. 

Professor Gould's Commentaries on the Gospel of Mark (in the International Criti' 
cal Commentary) and the Epistles to the Corinthians (in the American Com- 
mentary) are critical and exegetical attempts to supply those elements which 
are lacking in existing works of the same general aim and scope. 

The History of Christian Literature until Eusebius 

Prof. J. W. Platner, Professor of Early Church History, Harvard 
University. 

Professor Platner's work will not only treat the writings of the early Christian 
writers, but will also treat of the history of the New Testament Canon. 

OTHERS TO FOLLOW 



" An excellent series of scholarly, yet concise and inexpensive New Testament hand« 

books." — Christian Advocate, New York. 
" These books are remarkably well suited in language, style, and price, to aft 

students of the New Testament." — The C ongre Rationalist t Boston, 



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